Share this article
UK Royal Mint Says Market Conditions Led to Blockchain Gold Plan Freeze
The U.K. Royal Mint has suspended its plans to issue the Royal Mint Gold token, aimed at helping investors track and manage their gold investments.
By Nikhilesh De
Updated Sep 13, 2021, 8:31 a.m. Published Oct 25, 2018, 4:05 p.m.
The U.K. Royal Mint has suspended a long-running plan to create a crypto asset representing physical gold holdings.
Citing anonymous sources, Reuters reported Thursday that the Royal Mint had frozen its plans to issue Royal Mint Gold (RMG) tokens after its partnership with the CME Group fell through and the U.K. government "vetoed a plan to have the tokens trade on a cryptocurrency exchange."
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
A Royal Mint spokesperson confirmed that RMG will not be launching at this time, though they left the door open to restarting the project in the future.
The spokesperson said via email:
"Over the last few years, The Royal Mint has been working on the development of a digital gold product, RMG, which was due to launch this spring. Sadly, due to market conditions this did not prove possible at this time, but we will revisit this if and when market conditions are right."
RMG was initially scheduled to launch in the fall of 2017, but the CME partnership failed "at the last minute," resulting in the Royal Mint no longer having a trading platform to issue tokens on. While the organization tried to find a crypto exchange to partner with instead, the British finance ministry reportedly blocked the move.
The RMG token was later scheduled to be issued in spring of 2018, but this again did not work out.
RMG was envisioned as a way to manage small amounts of gold, making it easier for investors to enter the market and increase liquidity. The Royal Mint also believed the blockchain platform RMG was based on could be used to track and prove a piece of gold's provenance, as well as support global trades.
Crypto security firm BitGo was tapped to build digital wallets for storing the tokens, while Civic would provide know-your-customer (KYC) services for the project.
A request for comment to CME was not immediately returned.
Gold image via Shutterstock
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Strategy’s STRD credit spread has tightened over past month even as bitcoin struggles
The narrowing spread between yields on STRD and the 10-year U.S. Treasury could signal boosted demand for the preferred stock.
What to know:
- STRD’s credit spread versus the U.S. 10-year Treasury narrowed to a new low on Friday.
- Strategy sold $82.2 million of STRD through its ATM program in the week ended Dec. 14, the largest weekly issuance since launch.
- Historical ATM data shows STRD has recently dominated preferred issuance among Strategy’s offerings.
Top Stories
