1) e-gold does not accept money from anyone, they have no bank account. To protect from default risk e-gold did not do any transactions with the public
2) yes, that seems to be the US interpretation of it ala the Judge in the e-gold case. I have not read the opinion yet.

I somewhat agree, and tried to present both sides of this discussion in these two articles. They are both somewhat compelling depending on who you ask.
I did leave out this very important fact. The gold bullion held on behalf of the client IS considered gold not valued as cash or currency and is how it’s viewed by accountants.
This is digital allocated gold bullion. Hence ownership and transfer of a non financial asset….is not money.

Accounting
There is a general consensus that all unallocated gold accounts should be classified as financial assets/liabilities, while the allocated gold accounts represent ownership of the metal, a nonfinancial asset. As to the classification of allocated metal accounts to a particular instrument category, accountants regard unallocated gold as analogous to foreign currency denominated deposits.
According to the United Nations Statistics Division[1], allocated gold is equivalent to a custody record of title while unallocated gold is an unsecured claim against a third party to deliver a specified quantity of metal of defined purity. For accounting purposes, this ‘boundary between allocated and unallocated gold is very precise and obvious’.
Based on this description, all transactions in unallocated gold credit balances cannot be classified as transactions in gold. Since there is no change in physical title to the gold the unallocated gold credit balances are viewed as equivalent to a foreign currency deposit. The account provider regards credit balances in unallocated gold as a liability to be recorded on its balance sheet.
Allocated gold is viewed quite differently. Physical gold held by the account provider will appear as assets (valuables) on a balance sheet.
Unallocated gold represents the unsecured claim of the account holder to receive from the account provider a stated quantity of gold. However, there is no title to gold.
It is very interesting to note that most of the gold bullion traded on the London market changes hands and settles in unallocated form. In fact over the past year, daily turnover in The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) allocated gold accounts has only averaged around 3% of the total unallocated gold turnover in London.
[1]Fourth meeting of the Advisory Expert Group on National Accounts, 30 January – 8 February 2006, Frankfurt, SNA/M1.06/30.1
The National Accounts Section of the United Nations Statistics Division - (background) To compile and disseminate global statistical information, develop standards and norms for statistical activities, and support countries’ efforts to strengthen their national statistical systems. Facilitate the coordination of international statistical activities and support the functioning of the UN Statistical Commission as the apex entity of the global statistical system.
Mark

2) e-gold (and others) enable users to transfer this representation of money to other users.

Sorry, but for all practical purposes e-gold is linked to the real financial network. If it weren’t, there would be no way to exchange e-gold for US$, and it would have no real world value. This is clearly not the case. In the real world, e-gold (and their exchangers) are essentially operating as a private off-shore bank linked to national money remitters. As a company, they provide the banking services of deposit accounts and money transfer services between those accounts.

Arguments can be made both for and against financial regulations, and government oversight, but pretending that deposit accounts backed by real gold and exchangeable for US$ aren’t real in the financial sense because the operating company is off-shore and only accepts money transfers from particular remitters clearly isn’t going to fly with the authorities.