Hi Steemians, thank you for a heartily welcome from so many of you kind and cool people.
I am amazed at how many of you took the time to write me a note and helped to make me feel welcome. I feel like the new kid on the block with so many cool people in the neighbourhood. No wonder I am excited about meeting some of these cool kids.
I am also trying hard to appear cool, but it is not easy in a unfamiliar environment. A cool thing that I do is to help people in South Africa get some bitcoin. Very few people want to jump through all the “red tape” hoops in an attempt to register at a bitcoin exchange. What I do as a CryptoTeller is to act as a bridge to help these people buy their first piece of bitcoin. I help by educating them about crypto currencies and accepting the local currency (Rands) from them. Xapo use me as a trusted party to put their Rands in their Xapo wallet. Once they have their currency, (could be Dollars, Ponds or any number of currencies), in their wallet, they are able to buy some bitcoin.
This helps a lot with general awareness and a better understanding of bitcoin. I respond to their questions and help wherever I can. By using people like me as a Xapo teller, the company, Xapo, have a local representative to deal with any interested persons, often in their own language. In addition to that, they do not have to run the risk and the legislative burden of dealing with the deposits from these customers. They use a decentralized system of money collection with very little risk. The customers pay a commission, that is used to cover the costs and leave me with a small profit. Xapo have tellers all over the world and if you want to sell (or buy) some of your bitcoins, take a look at their site: xapo.com