I founded MRD in 2002, and those three letters have always stood for Mentoring, Research and Development. Today they also stand for what I teach: Metals, Real estate and Digital assets. Real estate has been my vehicle since 1997, and the Building and Retirement libraries carry it. This library carries the other two: precious metals and digital assets.
Why money, and why now
Money is usually taught in the rear-view mirror. We study what it has done, follow the evening news, and expect tomorrow to look like yesterday.
A bad first brush with crypto, a few years before, had left me wary. Then, in early 2020, I became convinced the world was changing, and changing fast. The old money system was carrying more debt than it could bear, and something would have to give. The answer I saw was blockchain and digital currency, with money backed by real assets, as gold once backed it. I have studied it for an hour or two every day since then, and learned from people who study it full time. Those hours were my deposit. Like borrowing to build wealth, I leveraged other people’s efforts, and the equity keeps growing.
Tokenisation is not a forecast. It is already under way. DTCC’s depository, DTC, held securities worth US$114 trillion in 2025. On 15 July 2026 DTCC ran live production trades using tokenised securities held at DTC. It plans to launch its tokenisation service, for a defined set of highly liquid assets, in October 2026. My view is that, in time, all of the world’s assets will be tokenised and all money will run on blockchain. When, I don’t know. That’s just me.
Source: DTCC, “DTCC Advances Development of New Tokenization Service”, 4 May 2026; DTCC, “DTCC Turns Tokenization into Reality”, 15 July 2026.
How I teach precious metals and digital currency
I teach gold and silver, what digital currency is, and how it differs from the money in your bank account.
I’m an educator and a mentor. Lessons learned after the event are the most expensive kind, so the aim here is to learn ahead of time, through your own reading or by talking it through with me.
Lessons are being added
Silver bullion: bars, coins and where to keep them Bars or coins, GST, and what the law says about where you keep it. Read or listen →RLUSD and stablecoins on the XRP Ledger What a stablecoin is, and who said they hold, use or plan to use RLUSD. Read or listen →Physical gold and paper gold: a bar, or a promise? Physical gold or silver is metal you can hold, or a particular bar kept for you as your own. Read or listen →XRP and Stellar (XLM): what the US SEC said in March 2026 On 17 March 2026 the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued an interpretation of how US securities laws apply to certain crypto assets. Read or listen →Allocated and pooled silver and gold: what you own, and where it is kept With allocated metal, a particular bar is kept for you as your own property. Read or listen →What is tokenisation? Real assets on digital ledgers, and where the XRP Ledger fits Tokenisation is the digital representation of a real asset as a token. Read or listen →Australia’s new crypto law: what the Digital Assets Framework Act changes, and when Australia has passed a law that brings crypto platforms under financial services law: the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Act 2026. Read →Gold and silver in super: what the rules say about bullion in an SMSF In a self-managed super fund, some gold and silver can count as collectables, which carry extra rules. Read →Banks and the XRP Ledger: who now holds XRP and RLUSD for clients If you hold XRP, you may hear that the banks are coming. In October 2026, banks took real, dated steps with XRP and RLUSD, mostly about keeping assets safe for clients, called custody. Read →Is silver a good investment? Five questions to answer first No one can tell you where silver’s price goes next week. You can work out whether silver suits you. Read →Ripple’s Swell week: what was announced, and how to tell a claim from a fact Ripple’s conference, Swell 2026, was set for New York from 27 to 29 October 2026. Read →Silver coins: bullion, proof and collector coins, and what sets them apart Two silver coins of the same weight can cost very different amounts. The difference is what you are paying for. Read →Euro stablecoins on the XRP Ledger: EURCV, EUROP and Europe’s rules You may know RLUSD, a US dollar stablecoin. The XRP Ledger also carries euro stablecoins. Read →Central banks and gold: what the official figures show You may have heard that central banks are buying gold. The official figures say they are: about 850 tonnes in 2025, and 170 tonnes in 2026 to the end of August, where data was available. Read →The DTCC’s tokenisation service is live: what it does, and where the XRP Ledger stands The DTCC is the company behind much of the plumbing of US share and bond markets. Its tokenisation service went live on 28 October 2026. Read →Getting silver from a dealer in Australia: GST, ID checks and the $10,000 cash rule Investment silver of 99.9 per cent purity, as bars, wafers or bullion coins, carries no GST from a dealer. Collector and proof coins can carry GST. Read → More lessons are added here as each is finished and checked, one at a time. Meanwhile, the home page sets out how I see what is coming, and the real estate lessons are in the Building and Retirement libraries.
If you would rather talk it through, the first conversation costs nothing.
Nicholas Lockhart