Royal Canadian Mint confirmed it lost millions on a failed digital currency venture and management declined to comment.. Royal Canadian Mint .“We have nothing to add,” said Mint spokesperson Alex Reeves. .“We do not segment the reporting of operating costs nor investments by business line.” .Reeves said the Mint “considers that information is commercially confidential.”.The Mint, in 2015, sold its custom-made digital currency called MintChip to private investors for $16 million. .An $11 million payment due last Dec. 16 “was not received,” the Mint wrote in its latest Annual Report..The $11 million write-off is in addition to an estimated $29 million in unrecovered research and development costs. .According to Blacklock’s Reporter, corporate records show the Mint spent at least $34.3 million on the project..“In December 2015, the company closed the sale of MintChip for a cash consideration of $5 million paid at closing and an $11 million, 4% interest-bearing secured promissory note with interest payments due semi-annually,” said the Annual Report. .“The principal amount due on Dec. 16, 2022, was not received.”.MintChip was launched in 2012 as a “new era” in currency. .Costs included filing eight patents, producing sales videos, doubling the hiring of research scientists, and offering software developers a $50,000 cash prize to design a MintChip app. .The Mint also sponsored an exhibit at a 2014 New York City trade show hosted by the U.S. National Retail Federation..Mint executives hailed the program as groundbreaking. Canada was “the only mint to have initiated research and development related to the evolution of physical currency,” then-CEO Ian Bennett said in 2012..“Money as we know it is fine today, but tomorrow is a different story,” said one Mint promotion. .MintChip was described as “better than cash since you can use it online.”.The program disbanded in 2013 by order of the Bank of Canada. .The central bank has a legal monopoly over the distribution of money under the 1934 Currency Act and earns $1.6 billion a year through the circulation of bank notes, by official estimates..The Mint spent two years searching for a buyer for the program. .At one point, they hired the US-based Boston Consulting Group to assist in finding potential buyers. .Eventually, the program was sold to NanoPay, a Toronto-based start-up. However, the net losses incurred during the sale were never disclosed..The failed MintChip program in 2016 prompted then-Finance Minister Bill Morneau to strip Mint managers of authority in launching any new ventures without cabinet approval. .“While the Mint operates in part on a commercial, profit-oriented basis, as a federal Crown corporation, it is an instrument of public policy for which the Government is ultimately accountable to Parliament and Canadians,” Morneau wrote in a Letter of Expectations.
