Straight from their site:
QUOTE
e-gold is...
e-gold is an electronic currency, issued by e-gold Ltd., a Nevis corporation, 100% backed at all times by gold bullion in allocated storage.
Other e-metals are also issued: e-silver is 100% backed by silver, e-platinum is 100% backed by platinum, and e-palladium is 100% backed by palladium. However, the most popular e-metal (by an overwhelming margin) is e-gold.
e-gold is integrated into an account based payment system that empowers people to use gold as money. Specifically, the e-gold payment system enables people to Spend specified weights of gold to other e-gold accounts. Only the ownership changes - the gold in the treasury grade vault stays put.
So basically this means that you'll have an extra bank account stuffed with (or without) gold which you can use as currency around the net, purchase stuff (ads etc) and then you can get the gold to you as money through different traders straight to your bank account or to your home as check.
Hope this helps you some!
Pia