The Gold Age was a

digital currency exchange A cryptocurrency exchange, or a digital currency exchange (DCE), is a business that allows customers to trade cryptocurrencies or digital currencies for other assets, such as conventional fiat money or other digital currencies. Exchanges may acce ...

and one of the first independent

e-gold E-gold or eGold was a digital gold currency operated by Gold & Silver Reserve Inc. (G&SR) that allowed users to make payments, which it called "spends", in grams of gold, silver, and other precious metals. E-gold was launched in 1996 and grew to ...

exchanges. Gold Age was a registered legal corporate entity of

Panama Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and ...

. The Gold Age was launched in 1999 and closed down by regulators in 2006.

Background

Gold Age was used to buy and sell and trade the following

digital gold currencies Digital gold currency (or DGC) is a form of electronic money (or digital currency) based on mass units of gold. It is a kind of representative money, like a US paper gold certificate at the time (from 1873 to 1933) that these were exchangeable f ...

e-Bullion e-Bullion was an Internet-based digital gold currency founded by Jim Fayed, Jim and Pamela Fayed of Moorpark, California, as part of their Goldfinger Coin & Bullion group of companies. The company was incorporated in 2000 and launched on July 4, 2 ...

, and 1mdc. Gold Age's fees for exchanging

fiat currency Fiat money is a type of government-issued currency that is not backed by a precious metal, such as gold or silver, nor by any other tangible asset or commodity. Fiat currency is typically designated by the issuing government to be legal tender, ...

into digital gold currency ranged from 4 percent to 1.75 percent, depending on the amount exchanged and if the client was an ''Inner Circle Member''. Gold Age was an accredited and gold awarded member of the Global Digital Currency Association (GDCA).

U.S. Secret Service raid, March 2001

On March 12, 2001, then Gold Age owner Parker Bradley was detained at his place of business in

Syracuse, New York Syracuse ( ) is a City (New York), city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States. With a population of 148,620 and a Syracuse metropolitan area, metropolitan area of 662,057, it is the fifth-most populated city and 13 ...

US Secret Service The United States Secret Service (USSS or Secret Service) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement agency under the United States Department of Homeland Security, Department of Homeland Security tasked with con ...

agents investigating

credit card fraud Credit card fraud is an inclusive term for fraud committed using a payment card, such as a credit card or debit card. The purpose may be to obtain goods or services or to make payment to another account, which is controlled by a criminal. The P ...

. Bradley claimed he has stopped accepting credit cards in 2000 due to too many people used stolen credit cards when conducting business with him. "The interrogation became less about me and more about politics and e-gold," Bradley said. "They were trying to get me to blame e-gold for fraud. Just to be blunt, these guys have no clue about how e-commerce works, how e-gold works or what I was doing." In 2002 Bradley sold the business to new owners.

Arrest of Gold Age principals, July 2006

On July 27, 2006 the

New York County Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the smallest county by area in the U.S. state of New York. Located almost entire ...

District Attorney In the United States, a district attorney (DA), county attorney, county prosecutor, state attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney, commonwealth's attorney, or solicitor is the chief prosecutor or chief law enforcement officer represen ...

's office announced the indictment of Arthur Budovsky and Vladimir Kats for allegedly violating Article 13-B of New York State Banking Law, after a six month sting operation that began in January 2006. Budovsky and Kats declared their innocence saying "We believe this is a legitimate business practice, which does not require a state license." Represented by Igor Niman,2 in N.Y. charged with money laundering
/ref> they were found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison. The sentence reduced to five years probation. Budovsky subsequently fled the country and founded

Liberty Reserve Liberty Reserve was a Costa Rica-based centralized digital currency service that billed itself as the "oldest, safest and most popular payment processor, serving millions all around a world". The site had over one million users when it was shut ...

to perform a similar service as Gold Age.

References

External links

Web archive for Gold Age
(Sep 2002 to Aug 2006)
RenQ Finance
{{Digital gold currencies Defunct online companies