Royal Mint plant for striking. This first phase of the mint was officially opened on 17 December 1968 by the royal attendance of Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip and their son Prince Charles. Originally there were fears that the Royal family would face protests because of the Investiture of Prince Charles as the Prince of Wales; however, such protests failed to materialise. The second phase of construction began in 1973 and included the addition of a means to mint coins from virgin metals completing the full minting process. Upon completion the final cost for the land, buildings and plant came to £8
Royal Mint was used to produce limited edition coins. In 2015, after nearly 50 years, the mint began producing its own line of bullion bars and coins under its revived "Royal Mint Refinery" brand. Then in 2016, the mint announced plans for Royal Mint Gold (RMG), a digital gold currency that uses blockchain to trade and invest in gold. Operated by CME Group, the technology is to be created by technology companies AlphaPoint and BitGo. The system currency which was due to launch in 2017 will be on the gold standard, whereby one RMG token equates to 1 gram of physical gold