Precious metal financial service and tech company Goldmoney recently founded Totenpass to provide options for users in light of the looming centralization of data, according to a Businesswire release. The company uses gold to create a permanent storage drive.
Totenpass, which is a 55% owned subsidiary of Goldmoney, seeks to deliver a storage solution that does not need power and without moving components. To do this, the company will directly write data onto a solid gold device.
The development of this technology lets the company provide permanent solutions that would minimize and ultimately remove the need for Internet connections and energy to store info. It describes itself as “the new paradigm for the permanent storage of precious digital data.”
The press release noted, “Goldmoney founded Totenpass to address a problem that we have identified as of great concern: The risk that the internet and thus our precious digital information is becoming increasingly centralized.”
The tech seeks to “empower both individuals and corporations to decentralize, preserve, and fully control their precious digital data once and forever.” Information stored on this device is readable without the help of computers.
Founded by Goldmoney CEO Roy Sebag, CTO Alessandro Premoli, and former director of optical media at Kodak Bruce Ha, and Goldmoney CTO Alessandro Premoli, Totenpass has been under development since 2017, after its parent company made substantial investments.
While Goldmoney owns majority shares, the remaining percentage of the stocks are owned by Ha and other employees, while Sebag does not directly hold shares, but owns Totenpass through is ownership of the parent company.
As chairman and CEO, Sebag explained the need for the company’s services. He noted that the possible centralization of digital information will “[sever]” the user “from the control and ownership of their precious data.”
He added, “We sought to invent a technology that would empower global citizens to regain control over their digital data thereby preserving the precious data which find meaningful once and forever in a permanent physical form factor.”
Meanwhile, Ha is optimistic that the company will be offering valuable services to customers, especially as many people store information important to them such as photos and videos. Storage also helps store knowledge of various topics, art, country, culture, and family.
Ha said, “The Totenpass technology we have been developing will preserve these most important moments, these memories, and this knowledge once and forever in a physical form factor.”
