South Africa is a peculiar place in the world, except for the obvious connection to Africa, it has a very strange mixture of high tech and low tech all mixed together in one big melting pot mainly due to its history of apartheid.
As such you can find some of the most high tech companies, products and people right up there with the most advanced of economies in the world right next door to some of the most impoverished, backwards and low tech of the world.
I heard about Bitcoin probably around 2013-2014, and at that stage did some research but was not captivated by the idea as yet and as such decided that I would relook it at some later stage in life, as back then I couldn't really see the value of blockchain technology versus the typical peer to peer sharing sites and struggled to understand how value could be derived from it.
Much to my, and I suppose a fair share of the rest of the worlds surprise, Bitcoin just kept gaining in value and popularity as the years went by.
Earlier this year, April 2017, I ran across a few videos on YouTube and articles on the web and based on my new research, decided to start investing in the cryptocurrency space.
Currently there are some really exciting projects aimed towards the African continent, one of them is Humaniq providing a platform for peer to peer lending, payments and financing using some of the best technologies currently available including blockchain and face recognition to name a few.
So, with no further adue..to get started in the cryptocurrency world from a South African point of view....
Get a wallet
Actually get multiple wallets....I would recommend Exodus and Jaxx since they provide you with good security and a whole range of different currency wallets including Bitcoin, Litecoin, DASH, Ethereum, ZCash and a whole lot more. Allthough you might also want to rather use MyEtherWallet for Ethereum which is a online wallet supporting integration of new ICO (Initial Coin Offering) tokens and MyMonero for Monero.Get some crypto
To get crypto, you either need to earn crypto or buy crypto. The quickest way is obviously to just buy some crypto and for this you can use exchanges such as Luno.com, however, after purchasing Bitcoin on an exchange at the going rate you want to convert that into something like ZCash or Monero if privacy is of importance to you.
- The second way of getting your hands on some crypto is through mining and the least favored ways or perhaps just for fun is to use bitcoin faucet websites or sites which let you complete tasks such as surveys due to their ridiculously low payouts.
- With mining, you can also choose to do the mining using your own equipment, or you could choose to buy a mining contract from a mining company such as Genesis mining. (if you do,,, use my code HQmrTk to get a 3% discount)
Now what?
Well, this is up to you. If you have little faith in the market you could sit on the fence and buy USDT, which is pegged to the USD with your crypto...which is a great hedging strategy against our local currency considering the current political and economic environment.
If you have confidence in the market,,, simply buy the currencies as investments or you can actively trade on exchanges.
if you don't mind the volatility too much for what your doing, you can also use crypto to make payments to friends and family and even take payment in crypto for your business. The world is your oyster...
Finally, if you do get into crypto...look at supporting projects such as Steem and Humaniq as they truly have the potential to provide value both rich and poor.
I hope to do a another related article some time soon....please let me know through feedback and upvotes what you think?
Regards
Robert