Exchange Rate

How Exchange Rate Is Set

Our recommended exchange rate is the rate at which merchants accept the Goldback.

Goldback dealers also receive all of the Goldback denominations at the same proportionate rates. For example, if a dealer were to pay $5 for a ‘1’ Goldback, then a ‘50’ Goldback would cost $250. This fungibility is necessary for the Goldback to work as a local currency. We encourage those seeking to acquire Goldbacks to shop around for the best rates.

Where To Buy Goldbacks

Paper dollar rates available at various currency exchange markets vary depending on real-world economic factors. To help merchants set their Goldback prices for goods and services, we publish the prevailing recommended exchange rate on this page, our home page, and throughout our site.

This recommended average exchange rate is updated daily on business days by Goldback, at 10am MST.

Exchange Rate Logic

  The Goldback® is the world’s smallest mass produced bullion product we know of, with each unit being one thousandth of an ounce of gold. Naturally, splitting a single ounce of gold into a thousand separate, uniquely serialized pieces, costs money in terms of production, labor, and distribution. This isn’t true just for gold, but for other materials as well — food, steel, lumber, water, etc. The smaller the unit, the greater the cost. A bottle of water for example, may cost 50 cents when sold individually, 15 cents each in a package of three dozen, and the same pint of water might cost much less than a single cent from a household tap.

An ounce of gold that is in 1,000 Goldbacks, has the utility to be spent in 1,000 transactions. A one-ounce gold coin does not have this utility.  So what is a fair premium for such a level of added utility?  According to our research, up until 2019, the market would have put about a ~200% - 800% premium on a near one thousandth of an ounce gold product. The Goldback regularly trades at around 100% above the spot price of gold, which is an unprecedented value in the fractional gold space. We are proud to offer gold currency at such a competitive exchange rate! More on this here:

Recommended Exchange Rate Calculation Change

  From mid July, 2019 through mid March 2021, the Goldback exchange rate was based on a Minimum Recommended Price, which was what we recommended resellers and distributors exchange the Goldback at.

We found that this did not fairly represent the actual exchange rate, due to the Goldback’s popularity, availability, and other market factors such as the spot price of gold. So on March 15th, 2021 we switched to a more representative Average Retail Ask Price exchange rate calculation. This represents an averaging of the paper dollar exchange rate for a single Goldback across various published online sources from larger resellers and distributors of Goldbacks.

The Gold Dollar

There are thousands of businesses that will accept the Goldback as payment for goods and services. Most local currencies are pegged to the U.S paper dollar in some way.  The Goldback, however, is pegged to the gold dollar.  Yes, gold dollars actually exist.  The U.S Treasury has produced millions of legal tender, one-ounce gold coins with a $50 stamped face value. So one fiftieth of such a coin equals one gold dollar. The gold content of a Goldback is pegged to this form of legal tender.

All Goldbacks may be redeemed for $50 in U.S. Minted Gold Eagles or Buffaloes via our partners at Alpine Gold. This can be done in increments of 1,000 Goldbacks for a one-ounce coin. We don’t recommend doing this since Goldbacks carry a higher value. This is a guarantee in large part because we don’t want people to feel like they ever need to recover the gold by melting the Goldbacks down. We also believe that this guarantee neatly classifies all Goldbacks as Specie Legal Tender Instruments.

Goldback Purchasing Power

In terms of purchasing power, how does the Goldback stack up against other currencies? Since its initial introduction in 2019, the Goldback has seen a ~65% rise in its average paper dollar exchange rate. Gold’s dollar purchasing power during this period had a ~30% rise. Most paper currencies have lost value due to inflation over this same period.

 Video of Fractional Gold Market . . .