The open protocol and payment infrastructure eliminating mercury from artisanal gold mining through transparent processing and digital settlement.

20 million miners.
100 million lives.

Artisanal gold supports entire families and communities. The 20 million people mining it are the breadwinners for an estimated 100 million dependents worldwide.

Less than 3% of what they mine reaches the formal market. PACTO Gold is the open protocol built to change that — everywhere, permanently.

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La Llanada, Colombia  ·  © Toby Pomeroy
"For thirty years the world has tried to stop miners from using mercury.
Governments. NGOs. The United Nations.
All failed — because they fought the economics instead of changing them."
The PACTO Gold Premise
The Problem

A $65 billion market that works against the people who create it.

Fifteen to twenty million artisanal gold miners produce roughly 20% of the world's gold — with no financial identity, no banking access, no path to a fair price.

Mercury pays today and requires nothing they don't already have. It also recovers only 30–50% of available gold and poisons everything it touches. Many miners know this. They use it anyway, because the current system gives them nothing better.

$630 million spent over 50 years. Mercury use unchanged. The problem was never a lack of will. It's a broken system of incentives.

Liquid mercury held in a miner's hands

© Sue Cunningham Photographic

20M
Artisanal gold miners worldwide, producing 20% of global gold supply
6,000+ lbs(2,700+ kg)
Mercury released daily into communities and ecosystems
<3%
Of artisanal gold currently reaching LBMA refiners and premium markets
The Protocol

We eliminate mercury from artisanal gold mining by making it economically obsolete — at global scale, through an open protocol built on the coexistence model.

Don't fight mercury.
Make it irrelevant.

Buy the ore before mercury touches it. Pay the miner immediately, digitally, fairly. Process it cleanly. Deliver traceable gold to a world that desperately wants it — but can barely find it.

PACTO Gold is not a mining company or a franchise. It is the open protocol and payment infrastructure that makes responsible artisanal gold economically viable for any operator, anywhere — the way the HTTP protocol made the web possible for anyone who wanted to build on it.

PACTO Gold works not because it forces change, but because it aligns the incentives of every participant in the supply chain — from the miner to the refiner to the luxury brand — simultaneously and completely. When every incentive is aligned, the broken system doesn't need to be reformed. It simply becomes obsolete.

Any operator can adopt the protocol and run a community-based ore-buying and processing center. They get the payment infrastructure, compliance framework, LBMA pathway — all worked out. Their miners make more money and gain financial agency. Dynacor has operated this exact model in Peru for decades, generating over $300 million annually with gold meeting LBMA Good Delivery standard. PACTO Gold scales it globally.

How It Works

Four steps. No mercury. Verifiable at every stage.

01

Buy Before Mercury

PACTO Gold hubs purchase raw ore directly from miners before mercury is ever introduced. The liquidity crisis that forces mercury use is eliminated at the source.

02

Process Cleanly

Ore is processed using proven mercury-free methods. Miners witness the entire process. Independent testing. Published results. Every gram accounted for.

03

Pay Immediately

Miners are paid digitally, directly, and the same day — no intermediary extracting value, no delayed settlement, no manipulation of price or timing.

04

Deliver Traceable Gold

Every ounce has documented, provable origin. Every transaction is auditable. Gold meeting LBMA Good Delivery standard, with a supply chain that withstands any scrutiny.

Mercury recovers 30–50% of available gold. PACTO Gold recovers 90%+, pays the same day, with no intermediary.

Miners make more money, faster, without mercury. When they see these numbers in their own operation, the conversation changes.

Field Evidence — Peer-Reviewed, April 2026

In a peer-reviewed study published April 2026, PACTO Gold's Science and Technical Director Professor Marcello Veiga documented field results from 35 artisanal mining operations in Nigeria: average gold recovery of 42.7%, with miners losing more than half their gold while believing they were recovering nearly all of it. This is the problem PACTO Gold is built to solve.

Anene, Veiga et al. Minerals 2026, 16, 384 →
The Foundation

Decades in the field.
Not a theory.

A career documenting exactly what works and what fails in mercury elimination. Two decades of community fieldwork. This is not a hypothesis — it is a protocol derived from observed reality.

Prof. Marcello Veiga

Prof. Marcello Veiga — Science and Technical Director

UBC Emeritus Professor of Mining Engineering. 300+ publications, fieldwork across 35 developing countries, architect of the GEF's global mercury reduction programs. The coexistence methodology at PACTO Gold's core is his life's work.

Toby Pomeroy

Toby Pomeroy — Founder

Fifty years in the jewelry industry. Founder of Mercury Free Mining, pioneer in Fairtrade and Fairmined gold, ARM Board member 2010–2024. Two decades of fieldwork across Africa and Latin America — the protocol is built on what he has seen firsthand.

Gold being weighed at a mining community in Bolivia

Lidia Achu, artisanal gold miner, Bolivia  ·  © Toby Pomeroy

The Human Reality

Behind every statistic is a person. A miner. A family. A community built around gold — and currently built around mercury. PACTO Gold exists to change what is possible for these people. Not through compliance. Through economics.

Active Site Pipeline

Five geographies under active assessment: Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, El Salvador, and Honduras/Costa Rica. Every candidate site sourced through the team's own relationships — no capital required for origination.

Get Involved

The methodology is proven.
The world is ready.

Whether you see a financial opportunity or an operating one — there is a place for you in the PACTO Gold network.

For Investors

Seed Round Now Open

Learn about the investment opportunity, market size, and Phase 1 deployment plan.

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For Partners

Operate a Hub

Interested in operating a PACTO Gold protocol hub in your region? Read the partner brief.

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