Where PACTO Gold Works
Artisanal gold mining communities worldwide — from the Andes to West Africa
La Llanada, Colombia · © Toby Pomeroy
Gold in a batea · © Toby Pomeroy
Fifteen to twenty million artisanal and small-scale gold miners work outside the formal economy, producing roughly 600+ tonnes of gold annually — a $65+ billion market at today's near-historic gold prices. Yet they remain dependent on intermediaries who control price, timing, and access. Mercury contamination poisons their communities and their product. They have no financial identity, no banking infrastructure, no agency.
After $630M+ spent over 50 years on aid programming and compliance efforts, mercury use in artisanal mining remains as prevalent as ever. Our mission is audacious, yet technical: build coexistence systems that fix broken market conditions — transparent, incentive-aligned, and capable of demonstrating Minamata compliance without requiring punitive enforcement.
PACTO Gold protocol hubs — community-based ore-buying and processing centers — buy raw ore directly from mining communities before mercury is ever used, process it cleanly, and pay miners digitally and immediately. The result is traceable, responsibly mined, mercury-free gold that commands premium prices from refiners and satisfies Minamata Convention compliance requirements that 150+ signatory nations have committed to but none has solved at scale.
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.
The way the HTTP protocol made the web possible for anyone who wanted to build on it — not owned by anyone, used by everyone, strengthened by every participant — PACTO Gold is the open infrastructure for responsible artisanal gold. Any operator anywhere in the world who wants to run a mercury-free hub can adopt the PACTO Gold protocol. They get the payment infrastructure, the compliance framework, the supply chain transparency, the LBMA pathway, the community relationship methodology — all worked out.
PACTO Gold earns a maximum 1% transaction fee on every gram that flows through the network. As the network grows and more hubs come online, that fee is designed to decrease — rewarding scale with lower cost to operators, and ensuring the protocol remains the most economical path to responsible gold for everyone who builds on it. At 100 hubs processing $10M in ore annually, that's up to $10M/year to the protocol company from a network moving $1 billion in responsible gold. At 1,000 hubs: up to $100M/year.
Dynacor Mining has operated this exact ore-buying model in Peru for decades — generating over $300 million annually with gold reaching LBMA Good Delivery standard through PX Précinox refinery. PACTO Gold is the open protocol that makes this model replicable globally. The pipeline of candidate hub sites is already under active assessment across five geographies: Colombia (multiple candidate plants identified by Veiga, one producing up to 600 tonnes of ore per day), Ecuador (Portovelo-area operations through Veiga's established network), Brazil (Pernambuco State), El Salvador, and Honduras/Costa Rica.
Artisanal gold mining communities worldwide — from the Andes to West Africa
La Llanada, Colombia · © Toby Pomeroy
Gold in a batea · © Toby Pomeroy
Field Evidence — Peer-Reviewed, April 2026
In a peer-reviewed study published April 2026, Professor 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 →Real revenue from processing, refining, and premium pricing for traceable gold. Sustainable business model, not grant dependence.
Miners witness the entire process. Independent testing. Published results. Digital settlement creates auditable proof.
Same-day payment eliminates the liquidity crisis that forces mercury use. Fair pricing removes the need for intermediaries.
Designed for replication, not expansion. Each hub operates independently, generating local jobs and removing mercury from local communities.
When liquidity and trust exist, mercury disappears.
PACTO Gold is built on what Professor Marcello Veiga has spent a career documenting — and on two decades of community fieldwork by the founder. This is not a hypothesis. It is a protocol derived from observed reality across 35 developing countries.
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.
Fifty years in the jewelry industry. Twenty years of mercury elimination fieldwork through Mercury Free Mining. Pioneer in Fairtrade and Fairmined gold. Board member, Alliance for Responsible Mining 2010–2024. The protocol is built on what he has witnessed, in community after community, for two decades.
Gold near historic highs creates exceptional conditions for responsible artisanal mining operations. Premium refiners currently pay premiums of $50–100/oz over spot for traceable, ethically sourced gold — yet supply barely exists.
150+ signatory nations to the Minamata Convention have compliance requirements but no demonstrated proof-of-concept for scalable mercury elimination with digitally traced payments to miners. Swiss refiners and luxury brands want origin transparency — currently blocked by opaque middle-tier dealers who cannot provide proof-of-source without self-incriminating supply chain violations.
PACTO Gold processing hubs create that transparency by default. Every transaction is auditable, every payment is traceable, every ounce has documented and provable origin.
PACTO Gold is raising its seed round to deploy the first protocol hub and prove the model at scale. Investors participate through Kingfisher Gold Resources LLC. We are seeking investors and operating partners who see what we see: a $65+ billion market where less than 3% of product reaches premium buyers — and a proven, replicable protocol to change that.
Seed Round: $2M — First hub deployment and community coexistence agreement, proof-of-protocol documentation, LBMA pathway validation, and supply chain transparency infrastructure.
We review all inquiries personally. Toby will be in touch directly.