Vaultoro review 

In this interview, Joshua Scigala CEO of Vaultoro, answers our questions on Bitcoin, Gold and Vaultoro. This company brings gold into the Bitcoin ecosystem with a few simple clicks and helps those focused on cryptocurrencies diversify into other assets easily.

What is Vaultoro.com?

Vaultoro is the fastest and most cost effective way in the world to open a Swiss vaulting contract and buy physical allocated gold. This will enable anyone to secure their savings outside of the banking system without losing liquidity. Our goal is to allow anyone to hedge their savings in gold but spent it in any currency down to the cent using a beautiful internet vaulting app we are building, and a gold backed Debit Card.

Can you introduce yourself?

Sure, my name is Joshua Scigala, I was a pioneer in the sharing economy, building the first clothing swap site in the world in 2001. I have always had a fascination with alternative economies and my interests help me find bitcoin when it was just under a dollar.  I have been working in Bitcoin and blockchain space ever since reading the white paper and now giving talks at conferences and meetups all around the world. The reason I do it is that bitcoin is changing everything for the better!
 
Under which jurisdiction is Vaultoro regulated?

Vaultoro is regulated in the UK. The UK has been the home of the London bullion exchange and so the regulatory environment is very well understood and clear.

In some adverts for Vaultoro, “Gold is protected from confiscation”, why?

Not many people know this but when you put money into a bank, it is not your legal property anymore. It belongs to the bank. They can then go off and gamble with your life savings. Would you trust your life savings with a Pro gambler? No one says yes. But we all do it every day.

When building Vaultoro, we wanted to build something that people could save in, that is secured in their name as their physical property and off our balance sheets. This means if something happens to Vaultoro it doesn’t matter because our clients gold is off our books, even liquidators could not touch our customers gold. This is something the people of Greece and Cyprus found out first hand.
 
How is gold in Vaultoro sorted, is it segregated and allocated or only allocated?

All gold is allocated gold in the user’s name as their legal property Clients can specifically ask for segregated but there will be extra costs attached, so it’s only really worth it for high net worth individuals.

What are the current fees for investors?

Current fees are some of the lowest in the world. a user pays between 0.2 and 0.5% depending on how much they buy. A user also pays 0.4% per year to pay for insurance, auditing and vaulting costs.

What is the difference paid by investors to buy gold on Vaultoro on the spot price?
Because Vaultoro is a full order book marketplace with people trading with each other, the price usually is very close to spot price. Sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit cheaper.
 
Can account holders in Vaultoro transfer gold between each other?

This is currently not possible because it could be used for Money Laundering. If people need to send value they just sell it down to the cent and send it as bitcoin and soon Euros.

What are the main risks for investors and how is Vaultoro mitigating them?

The main risks for investors in Physical gold is that they try to store it at home. Insurance companies know a thing or two about risk and price it accordingly. If you try to insure gold at home you will pay far far more than if you secure it in a top-tier professional and Audited Vaulting facility. We remove the other risk is that you are buying pooled gold from some dealers.

You have a page, where users can add and vote for ideas. Which ideas are the most likely candidates to be implemented on Vaultoro?

Adding Silver, Euros and a debit card are the most likely features in the near term.
 
In this page, there is a note about discouraging the suggestions regarding Altcoins … Is it a business, philosophical or regulatory decision?
 
No, it’s simply that there are thousands of useless clone coins out there and the investors of these coins brigade around the web asking every business to support their currency to pump the value.

It’s just a waste of time for us because we are focused on bitcoin and maybe 5 of the top alts. We keep good track of which coins are scams and which ones have real promise, so there is no point getting 20 requests a week for some new coin to be added.

What are the plans for Vaultoro in the next three years?

Our goal is to enable as many people as possible to secure their savings outside of a shaky financial system.

To do this, we will offer all the things people love about retail banking like paying bills and debit cards but without the ability for us to gamble with users savings like banks do.

We also want to show the world how blockchain tech creates radical transparency for financial institutions while preserving privacy for customers. We hope this will help consumers to choose only radically transparent financial institutions like Vaultoro.

To learn more about Vaultoro’s product offering visit: Vaultoro

We thank Joshua Scigala for the interview.

Expert Interview with Joshua Scigala, CEO Vaultoro.com: