Since 1886, Africa has been renowned for its gold production, when prospectors found several gold-bearing reefs around present-day Johannesburg in South Africa. Since then, the continent has experienced a boom in production. Nevertheless, South Africa remained the world's dominant gold player for over a century, producing 30% of the world's gold for decades.
In fact, according to a recent report, there are 21 African countries with gold mining activities, which produced around 633 metric tons in 2020. Moreover, as the gold price continues to rise, there is an increase in gold exploration on the continent, with the activity of mergers and acquisitions expected to increase.
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Not only is gold good for investment purposes, though, but it's also good for the economy. In a 2021 survey by the World Gold Council, it was discovered that the industry employed 264,700 people, with 96% being full time, across 31 gold mining companies. These jobs were found to provide six times the national average wage.
The report also found that across the 31 companies, 34.5 million ounces of gold were mined, contributing approximately US$38 billion to the GDP of the countries they operated in. In addition, responsible gold miners also work to boost local economies by employing local employees and contributing to their relative supply chains, supporting their 'license-to-operate' and enabling the community to benefit from mines' economic and social development.
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New advents in cryptocurrency are constantly changing what is possible for users, and Africa is at the forefront of this revolution. One company that plans to take blockchain technology to another level in Africa is Zambesi Gold. The company's team of mining experts is led by one of Africa's leading mining specialists CEO Koos Van Straaten. Combined with Koos' 40 years of experience in his field, its team believes it's perfectly positioned to advance this revolutionary project.
The Zambesi Gold standard is a monetary system backed by the value of physical gold. Similar to real gold, the immutability of blockchain and the implementation of intelligent contracts ensure that ownership is secure and transparent. The other similarity that Zambesi Token has to real gold is that it is perfectly divisible, with historical and inherent value projected for the future. Furthermore, due to the immutability of blockchain technology and the implementation of smart contracts, the platform ensures that ownership is secure and transparent.
Zambesi's number of tokens will be fixed, preventing inflation. Therefore a token's value will increase, irrespective of the demand for the token or the gold price. Zambesi Gold also has an agreement between the Zambesi Token and its investors that no fractional lending will occur.
One of the reasons Zambesi Gold was made was to disrupt the current state of the gold mining industry. Traditionally, the amount of gold backing for gold mining houses is often unsuccessful because of high overhead costs, debt, finance, lack of control over commodity prices, and non-compliance. With its management and overall ability to lead, guide, and influence operation profitability, the company aims to solve this problem, standing by the belief that each asset should contribute to the profitability of the business and not subsidize other assets while innovatively using disruptive finance methods to reduce the cost of debt.
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The company's Gold Custodian Trust plays an integral role in this process. This vault is where the physical bullion gets stored, where token holders are the beneficiaries of the custodian trust. Liquidity will be provided through an exchange mechanism allowing a token holder to redeem his proportionate ownership of the gold held in the trust. The redeemed tokens will then be burned, creating more value for the remaining token holders.
Zambesi Gold is unlike any other project on the market today. The platform's mission is to succeed where others have failed and lead the transition of mining assets becoming fully backed digital assets. The ZGD token is listed on a top tier exchange platform.
