Glossary

LBMA Good Delivery is the international quality standard maintained by the London Bullion Market Association. A refiner on the LBMA Good Delivery List has proven its bars meet strict purity (≥99.5% gold, ≥99.9% silver), weight, dimensions, and assay accuracy — making the bars universally accepted by major dealers.

A troy ounce is the standard unit of weight for precious metals, equal to 31.1034768 grams. It is about 10% heavier than the ordinary avoirdupois ounce (28.35 g) used in everyday commerce. All spot prices, bar weights, and coin denominations in bullion are denominated in troy ounces.

Fineness is the purity of a precious metal item, expressed as parts per thousand. A 1 oz Gold Maple Leaf at .9999 fineness is 99.99% pure gold. Investment-grade gold for VAT exemption in the EU must be ≥99.5% fine (995/1000). Common levels: .999, .9999, .99999.

A sovereign coin is a bullion coin issued by a national government with legal-tender status and a face value. Examples: American Eagle, Canadian Maple Leaf, British Britannia, Austrian Philharmonic, South African Krugerrand. Sovereign coins are universally recognized and easier to resell than private bars.

Cast bars are hand-poured: molten gold or silver is poured into a mold and the surface stays slightly rough. Minted bars are struck from rolled sheets with polished dies, giving a mirror finish. Cast bars carry a lower premium; minted bars look better and resell more easily in small sizes.

A Good Delivery bar is a gold bar that meets LBMA standards for the wholesale market: ≥99.5% pure, 350–430 troy oz (~10.9–13.4 kg), produced by a refiner on the LBMA Good Delivery List. These bars are the unit of wholesale gold trading. Retail buyers usually purchase smaller bars (1 g – 1 kg) from the same refiners.

The spot price is the live wholesale market price for one troy ounce of pure gold (or silver) delivered immediately. It is set continuously by the LBMA, COMEX, and other major markets. Retail bullion always trades above spot, with the markup called the premium.

The premium is the markup over spot price that you pay for retail bullion. It compensates the mint, refiner, dealer, and shipper. Premiums vary by product: 1 oz sovereign coins are 4–6%, 1 g minted bars can be 8–12%, 1 kg LBMA bars are 2–3%. Lower premium = more metal per dollar.

Investment-grade gold is the legal category of gold bullion that qualifies for VAT exemption in the EU: bars and coins of ≥99.5% purity (gold) or ≥99.9% (specific silver products), in standard weights, minted after 1800. The category is defined by EU Directive 2006/112/EC, Article 346.

Investment-grade gold is VAT-exempt in the EU, UK, Switzerland, UAE, Singapore, and Australia. Silver is generally VAT-taxable (19–25% in EU, 20% UK, 8.1% CH, 0% on Singapore IPM, 0% UAE). Buyers are responsible for any import VAT at destination — Ounceo ships with accurate customs declarations.

AML thresholds are the order or cumulative-value amounts above which a precious-metals dealer is legally required to verify customer identity. Common triggers: €10,000 EU AMLD6, $10,000 US FinCEN, CHF 15,000 Switzerland, AED 55,000 UAE. Ounceo applies $5,000 per order, safely below every major threshold.

KYC is the identity-verification process required by AML law for transactions above the dealer threshold. Typical KYC: photo ID (passport or national ID) + a selfie matching the ID. At Ounceo, KYC is required for orders above $5,000, or cumulative orders above $10,000 in 30 days to the same address.

Structuring is the practice of splitting one large transaction into multiple smaller ones to stay below a reporting threshold. It is a criminal offense in most jurisdictions even if the underlying transaction is legitimate. Ounceo aggregates orders per shipping address across a rolling 30-day window to prevent inadvertent or intentional structuring.

Monero is a privacy-focused cryptocurrency that uses ring signatures, stealth addresses, and confidential transactions to make on-chain analysis infeasible. Ounceo accepts XMR directly (most bullion dealers route crypto through BitPay, which does not support XMR) and applies an automatic 1.5% discount.

Bitcoin is the original cryptocurrency. Ounceo accepts BTC both on-chain (2 confirmations, ~20 minutes) and via Lightning Network (instant settlement, 0.5% discount). Quote prices are USD-denominated; the BTC amount is locked for 30 minutes against the live BTC/USD rate at quote issuance.

The Lightning Network is a second-layer payment protocol built on top of Bitcoin. It enables near-instant, low-fee transactions by routing payments through channels of pre-committed BTC. Ounceo accepts Lightning for any quote and applies a 0.5% discount because settlement is instant and reconciliation overhead is zero.

An on-chain confirmation is one block mined on top of the block containing your transaction. Ounceo requires 2 confirmations for BTC on-chain (~20 minutes), 10 for XMR (~20 minutes), 20 blocks for ETH and ERC-20/TRC-20 stablecoins (~5 minutes on ETH, ~1 minute on TRON, ~10 seconds on Solana).

BTCPay Server is a self-hosted, open-source crypto payment processor. It connects to your own BTC and Lightning node and accepts payments without any third-party intermediary. Ounceo currently uses direct wallet receiving; BTCPay self-hosting is on the roadmap for V2 to streamline reconciliation.

FedEx International Priority is the FedEx service tier used for all Ounceo shipments. It delivers within 1–3 business days to most countries, supports declared-value insurance, requires signature on delivery, and uses HS codes 7108.12 (gold bullion), 7106.91 (silver bullion), 7118.90 (legal-tender coins) on customs forms.

Declared value is the amount you tell the courier your shipment is worth. FedEx Declared Value Coverage insures the package up to the declared value, with a cap around $50,000 per package on most lanes. Ounceo declares the full retail value on every shipment and pays the corresponding insurance line item.

Ounceo divides the world into eight FedEx shipping zones: US (incl. Canada), EU, UK/CH/NO/IS, MENA, APAC, Oceania, LatAm, and Africa. Each zone has a flat shipping fee ($80–$250). Some countries are case-by-case (Argentina, Egypt, Lebanon, Nigeria) and a few are blocked (Russia, Iran, North Korea, India, Brazil, Turkey, China).