There are a couple reasons I don't think it's backed by anything:
1.) There was never a list of investors, which for something like this there'd at least be one or two.
2.) They were using an expired SSL cert for the first 3 months of service. SSL certs are cheap. So either they couldn't afford a new cert, or couldn't afford to pay someone to set them up properly.
3.) Power outages meant interuption in service. Which confused the hell out of me, they can't afford to set themselves up in a data center but they have helluva gold just laying around?
http://www.e-gold.com/unsecure/frances.html