A common complaint from gold investors is that the benchmark price of physical gold, set twice daily in London by a handful of banks, is open to manipulation. There is currently a lawsuit underway concerning such allegations and the benchmark is due to be replaced in early 2015 because of incoming financial regulations stemming from the LIBOR scandal.
With the emergence of Bitcoin as a platform to transfer assets other than BTC, I believe that if entrepreneurs and gold stakeholders were to support the development of investor products based around gold-backed Bitcoin assets, a new price benchmark for physical gold could emerge. With the bulk of the world's gold production and consumption now in Asia, and new gold exchanges having launched there recently, Bitcoin could help tip the balance, and we could enter a new era where the price of gold is no longer influenced so much by London. For some, this would be liberation.
I have put together a short paper to explore this topic, including how to create a new Bitcoin asset in just a few minutes and why these assets are superior to existing gold instruments. It's currently a working draft and your feedback is most welcome. Please feel free to comment here or within the Google Document itself. Thank you!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/15VG1f8Jwkl6eKLsqGv1KdUUgVRkQleaXr33JgDL-4So/edit?usp=sharingNote: I am involved in a Bitcoin assets project, within the colored coins family, called CoinSpark. You can find out more here:
http://www.coinspark.orgUpdate: Example diagram showing how GoldCo can securitize their gold holdings as Bitcoin assets
http://i.imgur.com/BUPDtSN.jpg?1