Today whilst driving on the freeway I noticed this huge advertising banner being towed by a helicopter. What caught my eye was not really the banner, but whether the helicopter was going to crash or not because it looked like it was seriously struggling. There was a seriously strong wind today and this advertising banner would represent one huge sail which is probably why the helicopter looked as though it was having difficulty.
I managed to get a quick photo as I could see the VALR clearly and nothing else and had no clue what was being advertised. When I arrived home and opened the photograph I noticed it was a crypto something and apparently it is the largest crypto exchange in South Africa.
Funny I have been in crypto nearly 8 years and have no clue what is being offered locally as I avoid them due to not wanting to increase my crypto foot print. Why would anyone register locally when you are just opening yourself up to regulation and a whole lot of pain. It is fine if you have $1000 or so invested and no more, but this would be problematic once things ramp up when suddenly your portfolio is $100K. This is how things tend to end up as things can change quickly over a few years of accumulation.
VALR like I said is a crypto exchange in SA that launched back in 2018 and has recently been awarded two financial licenses. One license is for over the counter derivatives and the other is a Financial Services Provider. This is the license Binance has been after and as far as I know are still waiting in the queue.
VALR is the first to offer CFD's or Contracts For Difference with crypto assets, currencies. Perpetual Futures contracts, indices and shares. Quite frankly why investors do not look further a field and stay local is a little puzzling knowing this exchange only offers around 60 crypto currencies. The limitations are real and this is no one stop shop offering everything like most of the bigger international exchanges. I would suggest anyone who is crypto savvy is not using local exchanges and that is more out of commonsense.
VALR looks no different than what LUNO is offering and if you are a crypto investor they are not comparable to Binance in any shape or form. I get the idea the SA Government wants to promote local companies and exchanges, but they should be at the same type of levels which they clearly are not.
I keep asking myself what is the point of these exchanges if they are just an on ramp to facilitate buying BTC or ETH before those funds are then sent elsewhere to invest in crypto that is not available locally. I am not sure even if these local exchanges have or offer staking facilities and if they did would they be comparable to the APR being offered offshore?
Crypto is still in it's infancy and we tend to forget how early and how far ahead most of us are. Many of us are looking for certain criteria and staking directly with the crypto blockchain or wallet directly involved in our selected crypto investment. Retail investors have a long way to go before they see what we are doing and that applies for the local exchanges as well.