On BullionVault you have a public nickname, sometimes known as an alias.

It means everyone can see the size of your gold holding, but without knowing it's yours.

In fact the only person who knows your public nickname is you.

This allows us to list everyone's holdings publicly, yet anonymously, and prove that the sum of all the holdings equals the bar list total. Everyone realises that if anyone else had too little gold listed they would quickly say "where's my gold?" and get us to repair our records.

Just having this discipline of daily public reconciliation prevents problems arising with poor record keeping.

We set your public nickname to begin with, but you're free to choose your own. Press ACCOUNT sub-menu SETTINGS and you'll see your Public Nickname in Preferences, which you can set.

Your new public nickname will be used in the next Daily Audit - published on the following business day. It proves your balance at the close of the previous business day.