One of the primary reasons why investors like us purchase physical precious metals, aside from inflation protection, is our family legacy’s financial privacy.
The right to financial privacy is something that no American should take for granted. The advantage of holding assets that aren’t subject to excessive fees, non-owner access, surveillance, digitization, and potential confiscation is invaluable.
Well, everything’s about to change.
Soon, the right to privacy may be “indirectly” revoked by the government through a sleight-of-hand maneuver that most precious metals investors may not even be aware of.
Depending on where you bought your precious metals, your personal data about your metals holdings may be recorded and subject to review by the government.
A Monopoly Is Forming as Top US Super Dealers Merge
Monopolies are generally unfavorable, as they’re anti-competitive. But this monopoly is not one concerning vendors; instead, it involves information-gathering. How so? Let’s start from the beginning.The government will only allow us to know of a few companies in the United States that can purchase bullion coins in bulk directly from the U.S. Mint.
These government contractors are called authorized purchasers, or APs. A-Mark Precious Metals Inc. is one of them. So what’s the big deal?
APs Help the Government Track Its Citizens’ Private Gold and Silver Holdings
So if you bought precious metals from any of the online mega dealers like Apmex, Provident, or JM Bullion, all of your private transaction information is now in the hands of the government.These government contractors are tough to avoid if you are in the market for gold and silver. Their sites gather your search data directly through Google’s “Tag Manager.” Next, they feed your browsing history into Programmatic Display Marketing software to tantalize you to buy their products weeks after your visit. They spend millions of dollars per week and cut margins to the bone to ensure you buy from their government-linked organization.
If part of your objective as a precious metals investor was to avoid digitization and fungibility or to exercise your right to financial privacy, your privacy might have been abolished if your dealer’s transactional records are under the ownership of an AP.
Take JM Bullion. The data from their 2020 sales records are astonishing;
• $1.49 billion in net sales; • 1.3 million total users (up approximately 30 percent year-over-year), of which more than 300,000 purchased products during the year (up approximately 70 percent year-over-year); • 794,000 orders processed (up approximately 80 percent year-over-year); and • More than 21 million ounces of silver (up approximately 120 percent year-over-year) and more than 500,000 ounces of gold (up approximately 170 percent year-over-year) sold.
The fact that this data with client users—buyers and sellers—will now be in the government’s hands is nothing short of a significant infringement on privacy and a disruption of many investors’ objectives to maintain the privacy of their holdings.
Fortunately, a few dealers are not subject to the government’s overreach of client data. GSI Exchange is one of them.
Ownership of non-CUSIP metals stored in your safe at home or in a private depository are 100 percent owned by your estate and accessible only by you or your beneficiaries.
At GSI Exchange, we understand the sacred value of your financial privacy and would never be instrumental to the government’s overreaching intrusion into what you buy, sell, or hold.