iEthereum is Implicit Gold

The following article is a speculative thesis based on game theory and the author's opinion at time of writing. It should not be construed as financial or investment advice. The content herein is purely for informational and educational purposes, and readers should conduct their own research and consult with financial advisors before making any investment decisions. Additionally, there is no official channel confirmation or denial of any affiliation between iEthereum and Apple. The connections drawn between iEthereum and Apple's operations are reasonable but hypothetical and intended to explore potential scenarios rather than present factual relationships.

This paper explores the concept that iEthereum, a distributed ledger technology (+-), could be inherently backed by precious and industrial metals through Apple's extensive supply chain, logistics, production, manufacturing, and recycling programs. While not backed in a traditional 1:1 ratio, the association between iEthereum and Apple's metal usage in iPhone and other hardware production would establish a unique form of value support. Additionally, the rapid circulation of iEthereum within Apple's ecosystem could amplify its value, leveraging the implicit metal backing in a value transfer technology.

iEthereum, an immutable ERC-20 cryptocurrency with a capped supply of 18 million tokens, offers a simple and convenient medium for peer-to-peer (P2P) and business-to-business (B2B) transactions. If Apple adopts iEthereum for these transactions, it is crucial to examine the underlying value of this cryptocurrency, given Apple's significant use of precious and industrial metals in its products. This paper proposes the hypothetical scenario that iEthereum is implicitly backed by metals through Apple's comprehensive operations, despite the lack of a direct 1:1 backing, and the potential for rapid circulation of iEthereum as a currency/commodity further enhances its value.

Apple's flagship product, the iPhone, incorporates various metals essential for its functionality. Based on available data, each iPhone contains:

Assuming annual sales of 231 million iPhones, Apple’s yearly consumption of these metals is significant:

Additional metals not specifically mentioned above include: iron, tin, nickel, platinum, tungsten, cobalt, tantalum and other rare earth minerals. If you would like to see a complete breakdown on the store of value “valuation” if we apply this theory to iEthereum please read An iEthereum Store of Value Thesis, an article we published on October 30, 2024.

Apple's vertically integrated supply chain, encompassing procurement, logistics, storage, production, and manufacturing, ensures a stable supply of these critical materials. Additionally, Apple's e-recycling program underscores its commitment to sustainable material management. Through recycling, Apple recovers substantial quantities of precious and industrial metals, further securing its supply chain. The circulation of iEthereum within this ecosystem could enhance these processes by streamlining transactions and reducing friction in financial operations. This efficiency would allow for faster procurement and reinvestment into the supply chain and recycling initiatives, increasing operational agility. Moreover, integrating iEthereum into national fiscal strategies would enhance economic resilience by promoting a stable, metal-backed cryptocurrency that supports sustainable practices and technological advancement. This could align with broader economic goals of resource efficiency, technological leadership, and sustainable growth.

While iEthereum would probably not have a direct 1:1 metal backing, its hypothetical association with Apple’s robust supply chain would directly supports its value. Apple's continuous demand and substantial usage of metals would create a de facto backing, ensuring that iEthereum remains tied to tangible assets critical to the production of high-value electronic devices. This implicit backing stems from:

The value of any currency is significantly influenced by its velocity – the rate at which it circulates within an economy. iEthereum’s potential rapid circulation within Apple's ecosystem would further amplify its value, leveraging the implicit metal backing through several mechanisms:

A deeper understanding of iEthereum’s role requires reframing it not as a currency, stablecoin, or branded asset, but as a neutral base-layer digital commodity. Its immutability, finite supply, and absence of administrative control position it closer to a cryptographic raw material than a programmable currency. In this framing, iEthereum does not represent metals, nor claim redemption rights, nor rely on any issuer. Instead, it functions as a scarce digital substrate that other institutions and ecosystems—potentially including Apple—could build on top of.

This neutrality strengthens the original thesis rather than undermining it. Apple’s global metals footprint, recycling programs, and secure-element infrastructure do not “back” iEthereum in a custodial sense; instead, they form a real-world gravitational field that could pull a neutral commodity like iEthereum into relevance. Just as industrial metals derive value from practical demand rather than legal promises, iEthereum’s utility emerges from:

In this sense, iEthereum behaves like implicit gold because it is architecturally incapable of dilution, seizure, or policy alteration. But it also behaves like a digital base metal—simple, finite, neutral, and usable as a building block.

If Apple, or any metals-dependent industrial ecosystem, plugged into iEthereum for payments, logistics, authentication, or settlement, it would not be “because Apple backs it,” but because neutral digital commodities mirror the properties industrial supply chains already rely on: predictable scarcity, reliability, and frictionless transportability.

This neutrality becomes essential as metals, supply chains, and digital payment networks converge. iEthereum is not merely supported by metals in the original thesis; it becomes the digital analog to an industrial metal within a monetary-technical stack that increasingly resembles a hybrid between cryptography, recycling, and precision-manufacturing economics.

Apple’s recycling initiatives—including the disassembly robots Daisy, Dave, and Taz—recover growing quantities of gold, silver, rare earths, cobalt, aluminum, tungsten, and other metals. In conventional sustainability discussions, these programs are framed as environmental initiatives. But when examined through the lens of monetary architecture, they resemble a closed-loop metals economy in which raw materials, manufacturing, device life cycles, and reclamation create a continuous industrial ledger.

In such a system, a neutral digital commodity like iEthereum could serve as the monetary membrane that connects each stage of the loop. Not because it is redeemable for metals, but because its scarcity, simplicity, and neutrality make it suitable for representing the economic energy required to move metals through the loop.

This produces a powerful feedback cycle:

Apple’s manufacturing demand creates predictable real-world scarcity for gold, silver, copper, cobalt, palladium, aluminum, and rare earths.

Recovered metals reduce volatility, secure supply, and stabilize long-term industrial planning.

Not backed by metals, but aligned with metals, the way shipping containers align with global trade—they are not the goods, but they make the goods move.

The faster the metal-recycling-manufacturing loop moves, the more valuable a neutral digital commodity becomes as a settlement instrument within it.

Just as gold gained monetary significance from industrial desirability long before formal gold standards, iEthereum could derive implicit value from the industrial-digital loop itself, independent of any corporate endorsement.

This is not a gold standard.
This is not tokenized bullion.
This is not a corporate coin.

Rather, this is a hybrid industrial-digital economy where:

In this framing, iEthereum’s significance increases precisely because it belongs to no company. Neutral commodities, not corporate issuers, gain monetary relevance when industrial systems seek trustless, immutable, and globally interoperable value conduits.

When viewed through this lens, iEthereum’s role becomes intentionally open-ended. Its immutable scarcity, neutrality, and simplicity allow it to function simultaneously as a neutral base-layer digital commodity, a transactional currency, a settlement token, or a value-circulation instrument—depending entirely on how an ecosystem chooses to use it. This flexibility means the thesis does not rely on iEthereum having a single purpose. Instead, its potential alignment with Apple’s metals-intensive industrial loop creates a spectrum of plausible functions. Whether operating as a commodity-like digital raw material or as a currency circulating at high velocity, iEthereum’s relevance emerges from the same underlying dynamic: a scarce, neutral digital asset intersecting with the most metal-dependent consumer electronics supply chain on Earth.

If iEthereum, as Apple's cryptocurrency of choice, benefits from an implicit backing by metals through Apple's comprehensive supply chain and recycling programs. This unique form of value support, while not traditional, ensures that iEthereum remains a robust and valuable medium for transactions within Apple's ecosystem. Additionally, the would be rapid circulation of iEthereum within this ecosystem amplifies its value, leveraging the implicit metal backing to create a stable and efficient currency. The association with Apple's metal usage in iPhone production highlights the potential for cryptocurrencies to derive value from real-world assets and the velocity of their circulation.

iEther way, We see Value!