What is Karatgold Coin (KBC)? The Truth Behind the Gold-Backed Crypto

What is Karatgold Coin (KBC)? The Truth Behind the Gold-Backed Crypto

KBC Value Calculator

Warning: KBC is a non-functional cryptocurrency

Karatgold Coin (KBC) is a dead project with near-zero liquidity. Its value has collapsed from $0.05 at ICO to $0.0011 today (99%+ loss). This calculator shows your holdings' current value, but you cannot realistically sell or redeem KBC for gold.

Key Facts:
  • 0% of circulating supply is actually in user wallets
  • No major exchanges list KBC
  • Regulators have warned against Karatgold

Your Value

Current Value: $0.00
Loss Since ICO: $0.00 (0%)
Value at ICO Price: $0.00
Important: KBC has no liquidity - finding buyers is extremely difficult. These values are theoretical only.
Legitimate Alternatives: Consider PAXG or XAUT for gold-backed crypto. These are regulated, audited, and trade on major exchanges.

When you hear "gold-backed cryptocurrency," you might think of something stable, reliable, like digital gold you can trade easily. But Karatgold Coin (KBC) doesn’t fit that picture. Launched in February 2018, KBC promised to let people buy, send, and spend real gold without banks. It claimed to tie every token to physical gold stored in vaults. Sounds great, right? The reality is very different.

How KBC Was Supposed to Work

Karatgold Coin was built as an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain. That means it was designed to work with any Ethereum wallet-MetaMask, Trust Wallet, even Coinbase. The idea was simple: each KBC token represented a fraction of physical gold held in secure storage. Users could theoretically exchange KBC for physical gold bars, use it for payments, or hold it as a hedge against inflation. The project even promised its own wallet and exchange to make everything seamless.

It raised $100 million during its ICO in 2018, way over its $72 million goal. At the time, the price was $0.05 per token. People bought in, believing they were getting a piece of real gold in digital form. But what happened after that is where things fell apart.

The Collapse of KBC’s Value

Today, KBC trades for about $0.0011. That’s a drop of over 99% from its ICO price. Its all-time high was $0.1261 in July 2019-just a year after launch. Since then, it’s been a steady decline. Even worse, its market cap hovers around $13-14 million, placing it near #6,500 on cryptocurrency rankings. That’s lower than most meme coins.

Here’s the biggest red flag: multiple blockchain trackers list KBC’s circulating supply as zero. That means, according to the data, no tokens are actually in users’ hands. Yet, the project claims over 21,000 holders. How can that be? If no tokens are circulating, how are people holding them? The math doesn’t add up. Either the data is wrong, or the token distribution is controlled entirely by the company-something that defeats the whole point of decentralization.

Regulatory Warnings and Lack of Trust

Regulators haven’t stayed quiet. Germany’s BaFin and New Zealand’s Financial Markets Authority have both issued public warnings about companies linked to Karatgold. These aren’t vague notices-they’re official alerts telling people to be cautious. Why? Because the project’s parent company, Karatbars International, has been flagged for questionable business practices in multiple countries, including pyramid scheme allegations.

Compare KBC to real gold-backed tokens like PAXG or XAUT. Those are issued by regulated financial firms. They keep audited gold reserves, publish monthly reports, and are listed on major exchanges like Binance and Kraken. KBC? It’s not on any major exchange. Trading volume? Effectively zero. You can’t buy or sell it without hunting down obscure platforms with no liquidity. If you try, you’ll likely be stuck with tokens you can’t move.

A traveler facing a fading gold ledger as gold bars vanish into smoke, in classic illustrated style.

What Happened to the Roadmap?

Back in 2018, Karatgold laid out an ambitious plan: launch a mobile app, build a crypto exchange, reach $500 million in market cap, and get 2% market penetration. Four years later, none of it happened. The promised iOS and Android apps don’t exist on the App Store or Google Play. The internal exchange? Never launched. The smart contract hasn’t been updated since 2020. No new whitepapers. No team updates. No blog posts.

The only public face of the project is Thomas Valet, listed as a marketing consultant. That’s it. No developers, no customer support, no community managers. The silence speaks louder than any press release ever could.

Why People Still Talk About KBC

You might wonder: if it’s so broken, why does anyone still mention it? The answer is simple-people who bought in during the ICO are still holding on. Hoping for a rebound. Some believe the project will come back. Others just don’t want to admit they lost money.

There’s also a small group of traders who speculate on dead coins. They buy tokens at pennies, hoping for a pump from fake hype or a short-term bot-driven spike. But KBC doesn’t even have that. There’s no volume, no movement, no news. It’s not a trading opportunity-it’s a graveyard.

An empty marketplace with broken KBC tokens, a figure walking away with real gold bars.

Is KBC Worth Anything?

Technically, yes. It’s still on the blockchain. You can still send it. But practically? No. You can’t trade it. You can’t convert it to gold. You can’t use it to pay for anything. And if you try to cash out, you’ll find no buyers.

Even if you had 10,000 KBC tokens, worth about $11 today, you couldn’t turn them into cash without finding someone willing to pay you. And even then, you’d be risking your funds on an unregulated, inactive project.

What You Should Do

If you own KBC and want to get out: try selling it on the few exchanges that list it. Be prepared for a long wait and a tiny sale price. If you’re thinking of buying KBC now: don’t. There’s no reason to. No team. No liquidity. No regulation. No future.

If you want exposure to gold-backed crypto, look at PAXG or XAUT. They’re real. They’re tracked. They’re traded. They’re backed by audited gold. KBC? It’s a ghost.

Final Thoughts

Karatgold Coin was once a flashy promise wrapped in gold. Now, it’s a cautionary tale. It shows how a well-marketed idea can collapse under poor execution, lack of transparency, and regulatory pressure. It’s not a failure of technology-it’s a failure of trust.

Gold-backed crypto isn’t dead. But KBC is. And unless something dramatic changes-and there’s zero sign of that-it will stay that way.