The coin, dubbed the Jewelled Phoenix, was crafted from 99.9 per cent pure gold and inset with 1.22 carats of rare, natural fancy pink diamonds from Rio Tinto’s Argyle diamond mine in Western Australia.
Featuring a flowering paulownia tree and priced at $188,000, The Perth Mint has produced only eight coins in total, making it one of the rarest collectible coins in the world, manager of minted products Neil Vance told ABC News.
"We sourced the diamonds from the Argyle mine and of course they're very rare so it adds to the prestige and the rarity of this set," Vance said.
"The phoenix has always been regarded as the immortal king of all birds and is meant to bring happiness and prosperity, so from that point of view it's very popular in Chinese culture,” he added.
In other Perth Mint news, the gold refiner has announced it is developing its own cryptocurrency that will be backed by precious metals.
According to reports, Perth Mint chief executive officer Richard Hayes said that the prospect of offering a ‘crypto-gold’ product was most likely a “world first”.
"With a crypto-gold or a crypto-precious metals offering, what you will see is that gold is actually backing it," Hayes said.
“It will have all the benefits of something that is on a distributed ledger that settles very quickly, that is easy to trade, but is actually backed by precious metals so there is actually something behind it, something backing it."
As previously reported by Jeweller, cryptocurrencies such as Blockchain are a permanent digital record of transactions that cannot be altered, rendering them “tamper free.”
In addition, most digital currencies have no physical backing and are transferred from peer to peer via a computer.
Hayes said a date for the launch of the crypto-gold product had not yet been confirmed, but he expected “significant movement” in the next twelve to eighteen months.
Established in 1899, The Perth Mint is Australia’s only gold and silver facility accredited by the London Bullion Market Association.
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