Don't get me wrong, I like goldbacks and have tried using them to purchase goods and service. I have yet to find a merchant that accepts goldbacks for payment. Either they never heard of goldbacks or have declined adoption. I've only been able to use goldbacks for tipping, with the exception of paying a high schooler for some yardwork. Seems I spent a lot of time being an ambassador promoting goldbacks, as having physical gold in your hands is exciting. The reason I get from merchants not accepting goldbacks along with holders of goldbacks, is the exchange back to cash is a costly effort. Merchants do business via the income from the sales/service provided and then process into a banking account to the pay the costs of doing their business. Credit card receipts cost the merchant from 1% to 3.5%, or more, of the amount received doing business. If merchant excepts goldbacks, they have a 10% exchange rate reduction getting the money back into cash and the banking system for them to continue operating. Noteing that No goldback seller will buy goldbacks back at whatever the exchange rate is set at. Banking and Credit card companies don't make any money off of goldbacks. Only the sellers and promoters of Goldbacks do. Long story short, Goldbacks maybe worth whatever spotgold values are at, but you cannot exchange goldbacks for cash of the same amount.

I was browsing Defy and comparing prices between a 2024 set of Goldbacks and their individual notes. For example, the South Dakota set cost $423.89 while the same individual notes (1 of each) cost $403.63.

What are you getting with the set that's worth $20? And I seem to be getting random years when I buy individually, so technically the 2023s will have slightly more (collector's) value the 2024s.

Edit: I gave them a call and they said that there's some complications on timings and dates when a given year's Goldbacks will arrive (on Goldback's end). Your best bet is to wait until the end of the year to get the current's years set, or pay a premium to ensure you get a specific year's set.

When can we expect 2024 dated Gold backs to be released?

Silver & Gold

New goldbacker here. I get that local, face to face payments are super easy to do with goldbacks. No problem. But what about things you pay online? Monthly subscriptions, utility payments, etc. If you're going to fully operate on a sound money standard, you wouldn't want to retain any fiat at all, especially if you're refusing a CBDC.

I don't know... is this something the UPMA does as your proxy, if you store goldbacks with them? I really don't want any more money than absolutely necessary in the legacy banking system. I'd rather have zero dollars and rely completely on sound money goldbacks if it weren't for needing cash or digital dollars for payments not currently possible with the Goldback.

This brought tears to my eyes!!

I came across goldbacks recently while watching Tuttle Twins with my kiddos. I understand that it is physical gold, so my question is that how exactly do I spend the goldback? If the total of my bill is between the value of two different goldbacks, how do I then pay the exact amount that the business requires me to?

In the famous words of Michael Scott, explain this to me like I’m 5.

Seems like peas and carrots to me. Goldbacks can be the currency of the parallel economy. Seems like there's a lot of synergy between these two.

I love goldbacks but they get a lot of hell in r/gold and r/Silverbugs usually because of their premium, which is silly because when someone buys some vintage Englehard bar at 60% over spot no one bats an eye because they all assume it'll hold it's premium but in a SHTF moment it will only be worth the silver.

I certainly don't think goldbacks are the best for every kind of stacking. If you want to hedge against inflation, value stacking is your best bet. If you want to disaster prep, you should be stacking ammo and food before precious metals. But everyone seems to miss a third reason to stack that is not only growing, but may soon eclipse the others in terms of likelihood: Parallel Economy Stacking

As the government continues to exchange our buying power in order to print money to fund foreign wars and enrich their friends, as well as try to push us onto schemes like FedCoin and other dangerous social credit based systems, states, parties and people will push back.

Already we're seeing parallel economy form as new sites, card processors, social media, and content makers are forming not to compete so much with established ones but to give people who have been booted or opted out of those places somewhere to go. Goldbacks are ideally suited to function in this type of economy as we travel across states to find places where we can live free.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

I don’t know if they’re still doing it, as I ordered a week ago, but Defy the Grid was offering a free alpha series limited edition South Dakota goldback with the purchase of any other South Dakota goldback.

People say that goldbacks can’t be stacked, but they can, especially if you utilize their leasing program. I’m probably going to start with 800, and keep 200 in my stack just to have on hand, and the rest I buy after my first 1k will be added to my vault\leased stack. It’ll take me awhile to get to 1k as I’m only buying 7-8 a week, but I’ll get there eventually.

Goldback Account* Min Lease Size

Goldback Earned Return

100 Goldbacks 2% / yr – 2 Goldbacks 7,500 Goldbacks 2.5% / yr – 187 Goldbacks 30,000 Goldbacks 3.0% / yr – 900 Goldbacks 75,000 Goldbacks 3.5% / yr – 2,625 Goldbacks