January Gold News 2018

The South African rand is hurting gold mining in the country at a time when a boost in gold prices should be bringing life back into the industry.

A recent report by Bloomberg highlighted the impact the newly-boosted Rand is having on the gold mines in the country. Gold prices are up more than 4% in Rand value to their highest point since August 2016, but with the Rand itself growing in strength against the US Dollar it means that operating costs for mining and refining are becoming increasingly unsustainable.

Silver has long been in the shadow of gold in terms of being the most desirable precious metal, but with a resurgence in the global economy we could be about to see strong growth in silver prices.

Experts believe that the current bullish stock market cannot keep growing at the rate it is, and as soon as it falters then gold and silver will step up to fill the gaps left for investors. If silver can break the $20 per ounce mark (currently at $17.25) then market pessimism will cease and demand ...

One of the world’s leading cryptocurrencies, NEM (New Economy Movement), was hit by hackers late last week in a remarkable attack that saw £380 million in cryptocurrency stolen.

Coincheck, one of the best known global crypto traders, has been operating since 2012 and runs the Tokyo exchange that was targeted. 260,000 people lost their NEM coins as a result of the incident, with around 523 million units of NEM estimated to have been taken from the online wallet system.

Cryptocurrency exchanges use different styles of digital ...

It has been a rocky road for President Maduro of Venezuela. The South American leader announced in December his plans for Petromoneda, a cryptocurrency backed by a barrel of oil per coin, but the proposed crypto is yet to get off the ground.

The first issuance was ordered on January 6th 2018, with 100,000,000 Petros planned, and each one backed by oil, but three days later and the Venezuelan parliament – of which Maduro’s Socialist Party does not hold a majority – declared Petros an illegal currency and blocked the move.

Critics believe the proposed currency is a way to ...

Ethiopia may be sitting on one of the largest untapped gold deposits left in the world, according to a new report from researchers at the University of Aberdeen.

Liam Bullock and Owen Morgan published their report last week, which was based on a combination of field observations and historical evaluation. From their time in West Ethiopia they found strong evidence for the presence of gold and graphite – the latter of which is used in touch-screen devices and lithium-ion batteries.

Interest in this area comes from its historical significance, with many historians believing this zone to be the ...

Arsenal Football Club has become the first major sporting team in the world to form a business partnership with a cryptocurrency* company, signing a deal with American firm CashBet.

The club, recently named the sixth richest in the world by Deloitte, announced the partnership with the Californian company on Wednesday, ahead of their ...

The mobile payment processing company Stripe has announced it will be winding up its support for Bitcoin transactions, with officials citing slow processing and high transaction fees as stumbling blocks.

Stripe’s support for Bitcoin transactions will last for the next three months, wrapping up officially on April 23, 2018. It brings to an end a four-year support period from the company, which made waves back in 2014 when it decided to support Bitcoin payments for its customer base.

Writing on Stripe’s official blog, Tom Karlo - Product Manager for Payment Methods & Dashboard –said: “Transaction confirmation times have risen ...

The web browser Opera has released its latest software update to automatically protect mobile phone users from cryptojacking - the unauthorised use of graphic and memory capacity to create new cryptocurrency coins

Opera 50 was first released for Windows, MacOS and Linux late in December and included NoCoin, a filter which prevents websites hijacking a device’s memory to mine cryptocurrency. The new release is out today, and will see mobile devices also protected against such unwelcome access.

Thousands of websites are now using a software called CoinHive to access computers and devices without permission, to then mine cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin ...

A slump in the value of the US dollar has seen gold prices climb overnight, reaching a morning peak of $1,355 per ounce. The price, a four-month high for gold, has been driven by comments made by the US Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin whilst at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

In a statement that moved away from the traditional stance of promoting a strong dollar, Mr Mnuchin extolled the benefits of a weak dollar and sought to reassure investors and the public alike that ...

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission has announced it will be banning cryptocurrency anonymity from Tuesday January 30 as the government begins to crack down on money laundering within crypto markets.

The real-name registration system means that any anonymous holders of cryptocurrency wallets based in South Korea must now link them to bank accounts in their own name at one of six authorised banks, in order to confirm their identity. A similar scheme called Know Your Customer already exists in the United States.

As part of the new rules, underage investors will no longer be able to own or trade crypto. ...

The controversial coin exchange ‘BitConnect’ is still being hit with a multitude of cyber attacks despite closing down last Wednesday, with customers reporting difficulty in getting their money out.

Investors face losing thousands of pounds at present, with The Sun and the Daily Express reporting that not only are these attacks still ongoing but now criminals are impersonating BitConnect customer support staff to steal from cryptocurrency wallets held by investors.

The company was hit with Cease and Desist letters from both Texas and North Carolina state authorities over its unauthorised sale of ...

The US Government has just ended three days of federal shutdown after the Senate failed to pass funding plans. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers were home on unpaid leave while the US Senate attempted to break the deadlock, leaving only essential staff in work.

The Democrats were refusing to pass a funding bill due to its plans for immigration reform, which would see over 700,000 undocumented child immigrants – many of whom are now adults – ...

Researchers from Tel Aviv University in Israel have begun tests using gold to fight cancer. Tests are currently being conducted on mice, with the primary focus to improve the rate that tumours shrink in the head and neck, especially in the mouth, nose or throat.

The precious metal is known to increase the intensity of radiation, so the hope is that it can be attached to tumours to make radiotherapy more effective. The microscopic amounts of gold are bound to a drug known to attach itself to tumours, which then in turn position it ready for the radiation blasts.

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Cryptocurrencies around the world are reeling after the announcement that South Korea may ban cryptocurrency trading outright. Many of the world’s major cryptos are based in China, Korea, and Japan, so a ban in one of those nations would have a knock-on effect globally.

The precious metal palladium has seen its prices surge in the last 13 months, reaching highs of over $1100 dollars thanks to increased demand in the automotive industry.

With the decline in popularity of diesel cars, petrol and electric or hybrid cars have filled the gap in the market, but it’s new, clean petrol cars – using palladium in catalytic converters – that are driving the demand in this rare metal.

The People’s Republic of China has reported no increase in their national gold reserves for 2017, according to official statistics released by the IMF this month, which currently stand at 1,824.6 tonnes of gold bullion stored.

China currently boasts the fifth largest gold reserves in the world and are one of the top two producers of gold ore, but they have reportedly not added to their reserve levels since October 2016 – a time when coincidentally they were accepted by the IMF into the Special Drawing Right (SDR) group, aka the prestigious ...

The duopoly of Russia and Saudi Arabia is the main controlling force for crude oil prices globally. Strict coordination between these two nations has driven up oil prices sharply in the past 25 months, with prices rising from $29.42 in January 2016 to over $60 as of January 2018.

These two nations have limited output to avoid prices dipping too low – something Iran and Iraq regularly allowed to happen – but now the prices are starting to rise they offer two threats. The first is that rival ...

India’s gold imports rose by 67% in 2017 – a rise from 512 to 855 tonnes of the precious metal according to a recent report from the Reuters news agency. The report also pointed out that demand for silver, primarily for use in solar panel manufacturing, was up by 23%.

The data comes from the precious metals consultancy GFMS, which is itself a division of Thomson Reuters, and suggests continued price rises for these two precious metals globally while demand remains.

Diplomatic relations between North and South Korea have taken a positive turn after the North reopened its hotline to the South with a phone call.

The brief 20 minute call was made at 06:00 GMT or 15:00 local time on Wednesday, and subsequently confirmed by the South Korean Unification Ministry 10 minutes later. North Korea announced the reopening of the telephone hotline via a statement on state television.

The hotline itself is physically based in Panmunjom, a heavily guarded and contested village located in the demilitarised border zone. It ...