We are approaching the Aug 1st Bitcoin date. And overall, it feels like the Bitcoin community is optimistic that everything will go well....
This is my full-show of three segments that I have combined into one. I am still getting use to this whole YouTube thing, so it will take me a while to get things together here. Enjoy the article and feel free to leave a comment or question as well.
Bitcoin South Africa
So the first Bitcoin and crytocurrency news that I will be talking about today relates to South Africa.
For weeks I have been talking about how South Africa’s continual adoption of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies continue to grow. And I believe this is due to the continual worsening of its economic and political landscape that we hear on the news. So quite frankly, I am not surprised that the Bitcoin adoption is extremely huge over there.
With it’s fallen currency, the Rand, folks are seamlessly tapping into anything that can hold value within this region. And if folks are not already aware of this piece of news or information is that South Africa has a credit rating of “junk” which basically makes it less favorable and risky for foreign investors to invest in the country.
The rest of the information that I will be presenting comes from an article from Coin Telegraph’s writer Darryn Pollock and I will have links to the article as I always do below. It mentions how the amount of users have grown by 100,000 within South Africa’s top two cryptocurrency exchanges, Luno and Ice3x. Ice3x founder Gareth Grobler (shown below) stated by saying “although this figure is tiny, especially in comparison to Asia, it is a positive step for the digital currency in one of the most forward thinking African nations.”
And I’ve recently covered Ic3x here on this channel. Luno’s marketing officer Werner Van Rooyen (shown below) is quoted by saying, “We see it in many ways, not just from our internal metrics including new customers, active users, application downloads, trading volumes and interest from banks and institutional investors but also from other places: trading volumes that keep growing, increased merchant activity, increased understanding by investors regulators and banks, press coverage, and the number of Google searches about Bitcoin.”
And from a recent post I did covering South Africa, even their own federal reserve are starting a sandbox experiment to look into the impact of cryptocurrency in its markets and to learn about its uses. And quite personally, I think one has to be a little suspicious about this sandbox experiment given this country’s uncertainty. But I digress. My whole point of covering this article is to talk about how South Africa’s retailers have been taken steps even much further by accepting Bitcoin. Two of the well known online retailers are Takealot and Bidorbuy. Both websites function like Ebay and Amazon. In addition, certain charities are even starting to accept Bitcoin like the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. The CMO, Chief Marketing Officer, Declan Hollywood (shown below) of Takealot, remarked by saying that they have started to see on average of about 170% growth per year of Bitcoin transactions. And so to conclude with this segment of this news, folks in finance typically say “the trend is your friend”. And right now unless the South African Rand awakens from the dead, the Bitcoin adoption is still up.
Obviously all this is good for Bitcoin. And I think the competition should at least encourage the South African Financial Reserve to step up their game with good economic policies.
Related Source:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/south-africans-make-bitcoin-work-for-them-as-currency-store-of-wealth
Bitcoin North Korea
So apparently there are folks saying that there is a Bitcoin node of a miner running in North Korea. That to me sounds ridiculous given the amount of how all internet traffic in and out of that country gets monitored and blocked, but I'm just here to cover the news.
And for people new to Bitcoin, miners are basically people who put together machine hardware and software to create Bitcoin. The name miner can as well be thought of as someone digging for gold and putting them in pieces called bullion. That's kind of how I see it.
So Kim (below), the president of North Korea has been in some pretty serious heat this past year about firing missiles off his coast. And currently the US and South Korea is in high alert in that region. This news about a bitcoin mining operation going on in North Korea really fits into that earlier news about a few months ago on how the ransomeware attack which was supposedly tied to North Korea could now be related to this case. But as for now tying both is still a rumor. To recall, the ransomeware attack was a computerized attack locking people from their computer and essential applications, and then releasing the lock if they pay in Bitcoin.
There is speculation that the government of North Korea can be using this operation to finance and fund related activities because as of right now, they face tough economic sanctions led by the US and partners. If I were to assume this news as true, then this would be government related by North Korea as the chances of regular North Korean citizens having internet access is close to 0.
The easiest possible way to block this North Korean miner would be to cut them off. Now how outside countries could go about doing this is anyone's guess right now.
Bitcoin South Korea
This is the latest news for the month with respect to South Korea. The country of South Korea has made steps to regulate Bitcoin. By regulating Bitcoin, it sets capital requirements, liquidity measures, and privacy rules to ensure safety to its government and citizens. This supposedly has helped prop the price of Bitcoin, by giving people the confidence to know that they can transact more safely than before.
In addition, remittances can be covered, thus allowing people to send and receive bitcoin peer-to-peer via supported financial institutions. So now since this is certain, it will definitely cause more competition between banks since banks make their money from fees.
In relation to the poorest regions in the Asian Pacific, this measure passed by the South Korean government early in July, establishes confidence for countries like Vietnam, Philippines, and Indonesia as they try and adopt Bitcoin even more.
Currently right now as far as rank, South Korea takes third place in Bitcoin transactions. The first and second place is Japan, and the US respectively.
Related Source:
North Korea Begins Bitcoin Mining Operation.
https://news.bitcoin.com/north-korea-begins-bitcoin-mining-operation/?utm_source=OneSignal%20Push&utm_medium=notification&utm_campaign=Push%20Notifications
Bitcoin Prices Propped By South Korea Regulation.
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-prices-propped-south-korea-regulation/
Bitcoin Bolivia
For new folks that do not know, South America is in an interesting point in time with respect to Venezuela. We still hear of more riots, political, and economic uncertainty in Venezuela that is currently bleeding into the rest of the neighboring parts of South America. Time will tell how Venezuela will end up doing in the future.
As for Bolivia and Bitcoin, surprisingly Bitcoin is still frowned upon as to this day as compared to other countries in Latin America. The last news from this country that was Bitcoin related was in May of this year on how miners were shut down and arrested from creating Bitcoin, and then accused of draining the countries electricity supply.
Bolivia's president Evo Morales (below) sent out a tweet today saying "A day like today in 1944 ended Bretton Woods Economic Conference (USA), in which the IMF and World Bank were established. These organizations dictated the economic fate of Bolivia and the world. Today we can say that we have total independence of them." So from this statement sent this morning, it turns out this country will be free from the hands of the IMF and World bank.
This basically translates to more freedom for the country in terms of trade and cooperation with countries and private entities. However, the president is a harsh critic of the US and the international banking authorities calling them out on taking poor countries hostages to foreign and corporate interests groups.
And though Bitcoin adoption is still slow in Bolivia, they should receive a thumbs up for seeking and fighting for financial independence.
Related Source:
Bolivia Declares Total Independence From IMF World Bank
http://www.trunews.com/article/bolivia-declares-total-independence-from-imf-world-bank
Bolivia Calls Cryptocurrency Pyraimid Scheme Arrests Advocates
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bolivia-calls-cryptocurrency-pyramid-scheme-arrests-advocates
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