BitcoinZAR

It looks really sketchy yes, time will tell, but for me, I am not touching it unless it has been going a few months and has earned a decent reputation

Did you guys do a group buy in the end? I see the next Ledger shipping date is October 15th

Curious to know what the ROI is on this so far. The price of BTC has increased a lot since you started, and so has ETH I think. Can you give an update?

Looks like we made it back over 4k....the next few months will be interesting.

The main reason is exchanges in China are closing....the same bloodbath has happened in 2013 when they all closed for 4 months because of the government. Now since ICOs are booming there and there are so many scams, the government has banned ICOs and is looking harder at bitcoin exchanges. The price dipped then, and as you know we have had all time highs since. Bitcoin exchanges were also closed in the US for a short while in 2013/14 and there was also turmoil....but we came right. Exchanges will open again in China when they know exactly what the gov wants from them, and they comply. In the meantime there will be a lot of blackmarket trading, and decentralised exchanges will probably take off and there might even be more that spring up. Where there is a will, there is a way. From my experience when exchanges have been put on hold in China and the US, and the price tanks, that was a great time to buy.

If you are using the instant buy / sell option in the app, you pay a premium...I have tried to work it out in the past, sometimes it was around 3%, other times more, so I am not sure if it is a sliding percentage or how it really works. If you instead create a buy or a sell order on the exchange, you will pay a maximum of 1% if your order matches an existing buy or sell order as you are then the 'taker' and the person with the original order is the 'maker'. The 'maker' will pay 0%, only the taker pays 1%. So if you want to pay 0% fees, always make sure you are the maker and never the taker.....which is a bit hard sometimes when there is zero spread between the best buy and sell price, and you need to buy or sell bitcoin in a hurry.

That chart is interesting....personally, I would just hold bitcoin, but that is because I am always trying to get more, and generally do arbitrage trades to get more bitcoin. When there has been price corrections in the past, I have just ridden them out, and bought or traded to gain more bitcoin. If I had sold at the top, it would have been great to buy at the bottom, I am no good at figuring that point out, so dont even try. When bitcoin price drops, generally a lot of other coins drop in price too, but if the price is correcting and a huge drop in bitcoin price, I think the most likely next coin that people will try to move money to in order to save value will probably be Ethereum. Waiting for the correction is something that might not happen for a while, nobody knows for sure....when the price goes up so fast, its almost bound to happen sooner or later....but this is bitcoin and strange things happen. The chart shows a pattern that to me does not mean a lot....just because something happened in the past does not mean it will happen again. The main divergence the graph is showing was end 2013 into 2014. At that point MtGox was the biggest and one of the only bitcoin exchanges that handled something like 70% of all the bitcoin trading. That exchange had a bot running on it that caused the price to go higher than it should have been, it also was extremely difficult to do a USD withdraw, so to get money out, you had to buy bitcoin which drove up the price. The reason the price crashed in 2014 was because MtGox suspended trading and closed their website.....so the most popular site doing 70% of all trading is suddenly gone....that made the price crash overnight. This time, there is far more exchanges, a much larger group of people buying and selling, and the volatility is far less than back then, believe it or not. If there is another correction like the graph suggests, it will probably be much smaller price wise, unless there is a huge event that is bad for bitcoin...(maybe November segiwt2x fork??) If there is no huge event, then I dont think it will correct too much....the transactions are going down when the price goes up drastically because people start to hold more, going along for the ride, why spend something today that will be worth more tomorrow? People also might be doing a lot more trading on exchanges, which is not on the main blockchain, so would not be in the normal list of transactions. New people buy, and often store bitcoin on the exchange...many people who have bitcoin have never even used bitcoin or sent some to a different bitcoin wallet. There is a huge amount of new money in bitcoin which is a lot of people who are buying purely as an investment for the long term. There is more demand, and less bitcoin around, with a larger amount of people buying who are not spending. So....although the chart is showing the divergence and likening it to the one in 2013 / 2014, I dont think that means there will be a crash because the charts says so. The price has gone up significantly in the last few months, so I would not be surprised if there is a correction anyway. I it does correct in the same pattern, I would probably put it down to coincidence. Then again, I am not that into technical analysis of charts, and am unlucky in calling tops and bottoms. That is why I do arbitrage, and hold, it works best for me.

I was answering some questions for someone doing a magazine article, so thought this might fit here too: Questions: What is Bitcoin? How does Bitcoin work? How can one get “in on the action” with Bitcoin? Where to start and how to be successful? How does South African policy around cryptocurrencies differ from the rest of the world? And what is the impact on investors? Why should people choose Bitcoin rather than some of the other cryptocurrencies that are around? What are your comments for the sceptics? Forbes Magazine recently published an article suggesting Bitcoin is “about to self destruct”. Do you disagree and why? Where is Bitcoin going? What lies ahead here in South Africa and around the world? What else do South Africans need to know about Bitcoin? Answers: What is Bitcoin? Bitcoin is the worlds first decentralized digital currency. It was invented in 2008 and released to the world in 2009 as open source software, to be a system of peer-to-peer electronic cash by its anonymous creator known only as Satoshi Nakamoto. Because it is peer to peer (person to person), you can send and receive value as bitcoin pretty much instantaneously with another person. There is no company in the middle like a bank, Western Union, Moneygram or PayPal, that puts a delay on your funds for 24-48hours, or can stop a payment, freeze your account, blacklist you, reverse a transaction etc. Bitcoin is open source software, so there is no single person or company in charge, no servers or website that can be hacked or shut down. There are no offices or branches you can visit for bitcoin, the system is entirely online. The system is decentralised and so there is no central point of failure and extremely robust. Since it was released to the public as open source software, the inventor no longer has any power or control of the system either, changes are made by consensus, so it is extremely hard to make changes or manipulate as the community needs to agree for a change to take place. Bitcoin is finite, and there will only ever be 21million of them. The supply is limited and the rate of creation of new bitcoin is set at 12.5 bitcoins created roughly every 10 minutes. Every four years the rate bitcoins are created is cut in half, so after the next 'halving' the rate will be 6.25 bitcoins made every 10min. This makes bitcoin a deflationary currency, and it becomes rarer and rarer over time. As time goes on there is less available, and combined with the influx of new users and uses for bitcoin, the demand increases. As supply has decreased, and demand has increased, the value has increased dramatically. This is the opposite to regular currency, where there is inflation of the money supply, making your Rand less valuable every year, and your purchasing power less and less over time. How does Bitcoin work? We can send pictures and messages instantly on the web, so why not money....a bitcoin transaction is data being sent, just like a message or a picture upload. Sending bitcoin to someone as a payment is similar to sending an email...you send from your wallet direct to the recipients wallet, just like you would send an email from your address to the recipients email address. Anyone can have a bitcoin wallet regardless of their age, or where they live in the world, there is no criteria you need to provide such as proof of residence or funds, it is completely borderless. Anyone can transact at anytime with anyone else without any person or company being able to stop or interfere with their transaction. The cost to send a bitcoin transaction is minimal and extremely cheap compared to regular methods of sending money. Since the transaction is data, the cost per transaction is based on the amount of data sent, not the amount of value being sent. If you send 10 million Rand worth of bitcoin to someone, or 1000 Rand worth of bitcoin, the cost will be similar and around a few Rand to send. So if you send a small transaction, the fees could look like a lot percentage wise, but on a large transaction, it can be a very small percentage. How can one get “in on the action” with Bitcoin? Where to start and how to be successful? To use bitcoin you need a digital wallet to store them in, which can easily be installed on your computer or mobile phone, or you can use a web based or physical hardware wallet. If you want to use bitcoin you first need to actually own some bitcoin. You can be given bitcoin by friends or family, or you can purchase bitcoin from someone who has some and is willing to sell some to you. The safest place to get bitcoin is on a bitcoin exchange, as they make sure that nobody gets cheated and make sure that if you deposit money, you get your bitcoin. Using an exchange to buy bitcoin is safe and fast, and normally the best prices for bitcoin, although the exchanges themselves will have their own rules about who can open an account, and how much you can transact etc. We list a variety of methods to get bitcoin on our website here: https://www.bitcoinzar.co.za/buy-bitcoin-in-south-africa/ Using an exchange, the process is that you deposit Rand, exchange it for bitcoin, and withdraw your bitcoin to your wallet. If you have bitcoin and want Rand, you reverse this procedure, deposit your bitcoin on the bitcoin exchange website, exchange it for Rand, and withdraw Rand to your bank account. Being successful with bitcoin is like being successful with any currency. Dont 'invest' in get rich quick schemes and anything that seems too good to be true. If you are investing in some bitcoin, treat it as an investment and be rational. A good way to invest is to set aside an amount of money you want to invest on a monthly basis, and buy bitcoin on a set date (eg end of the month) regardless of the price. Some days you may get it cheaper, sometimes it will be more expensive, but you will be spreading the risk over time and get an average price for your bitcoin. It would be reckless to invest your life savings into bitcoin as it is considered a high risk investment. How does South African policy around cryptocurrencies differ from the rest of the world? And what is the impact on investors? Cryptocurrencies are unregulated in South Africa and you are using them at your own risk. Why should people choose Bitcoin rather than some of the other cryptocurrencies that are around? Bitcoin is THE original blockchain and the first real cryptocurrency. It has been used successfully and continuously since 2009 and is the most tested and mature blockchain in existence with years head start on any other cryptocurrency clones. The bitcoin blockchain is the only blockchain that has scale, resilience and trust. Bitcoin is the only use-case for blockchain technology that has succeeded in any meaningful way to date, and is the only working commercial application of blockchain technology. The only blockchain that works with proven utility at scale is the bitcoin blockchain. Only the bitcoin blockchain is trusted, secure, immutable and reliable enough for business. What are your comments for the sceptics? Forbes Magazine recently published an article suggesting Bitcoin is “about to self destruct”. Do you disagree and why? Bitcoin is always "about to die" or is "dead" somewhere in the world. There is even a bitcoin obituary website that has links to over a hundred different articles and news posts saying that bitcoin is dead. If you mean dead as in cease to exist, it will never die as long as there is at least one person in the world running the bitcoin software. Most articles claiming it is about to self destruct or similar are click bait or written by people who dont really know what they are talking about. Bitcoin is here to stay....the price of bitcoin might go down and there might be articles saying it is 'dead', but it will still technically work as it should. Where is Bitcoin going? What lies ahead here in South Africa and around the world? There are a lot of new and exciting things waiting on the sidelines for bitcoin. The use of the bitcoin blockchain for money is only the tip of the iceberg. As the next round of improvements to the software are implemented, we will see amazing applications coming. Just like when the internet first started, nobody could even fathom that you would be able to stream live video, the same is true for bitcoin. We have no idea of the amazing things that will be done in the future with blockchain technology. Money is just the first application of the technology, just like email was one of the first great applications for the internet. What else do South Africans need to know about Bitcoin? To invest in bitcoin, you only need to own some bitcoin. If you invest in gold, you only need to own some gold, it is the same principal. To invest in property, you only buy property, the property, gold, or bitcoin appreciates or depreciates in value, and you can make a profit or loss when you sell it. There is no interest earned with bitcoin, and no table of earnings for bitcoin, just like with owning gold. There are no fees to join, there is no account manager to pay or subscription to pay, be weary of 'investment' websites that ask for these things. Any website that is advertised as a bitcoin investment website or system of earning bitcoin is probably a scam or pyramid scheme that just wants you deposit your bitcoins. Stay away from websites where you 'earn bitcoins', as well as "get rich quick" schemes using bitcoin. The best way to invest in bitcoin, is to just buy bitcoin, and secure it in your own bitcoin wallet. Do not store your bitcoin on a bitcoin exchange, keep it in your own bitcoin wallet off a bitcoin exchange that you control the private keys for. Use a bitcoin exchange to deposit and exchange Rand and bitcoin, then withdraw your funds. If you would like to invest in bitcoin, dont take the easy or lazy route and trust other people or websites, learn about it and get educated on everything to do with bitcoin. If your money is at risk, dont trust anyone else, look after your own bitcoin on your own secure bitcoin wallet. If you are not trained in trading of stocks or forex, do not try and be a bitcoin trader and play the market. You will most likely get eaten alive by savvy traders out there and lose your money.

From what I understand, if someone wants to sell bitcoin and puts in a price of R100 by accident, and still approves the popup message confirming, it will sell the bitcoin for R100. Same goes the other way...if you say you want to buy bitcoin for R100000 and you confirm the price, it will sell you the amount of bitcoin you want for that price. The ice trading engine will match orders accordingly....moral of the story is to always check your order on the confirmation popup window.

Latest version of exodus will allow you to withdraw your bitcoin cash. Luno also has a solution for you to withdraw if you had bitcoin in their wallet. Login on the website to see the options, I think the app does not have them, not too sure.

Its a pyramid scheme. Stay away from things like this...

OK, what you need to do is update to the latest version of exodus first. The latest version will allow you to withdraw your bitcoin cash. Once you have updated, open the wallet, and go to the Help menu, scroll to the bottom and click the How to claim your bitcoin cash button. The instructions are pretty self explanatory from there, so follow them to send your bitcoin cash to a bitcoin cash address.

Asia is hot! Not been to any farms no, not on my agenda. Last year I was here too, and was amazed at how much bigger bitcoin is here. It is much easier to pay for things in bitcoin as there are more places that accept it. You can also buy it easier, and there are some money exchange places that accept it too, along with western union, moneygram etc. Last year I spent 8 months traveling in Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Laos. This trip I have been back to Malaysia and Indonesia, and am currently in Thailand. So far Indonesia is the biggest acceptance of bitcoin in terms of being able to use it in a restaurant in Bali, or just to pop in to the guys at the bitcoin Indonesia exchange and do an over the counter trade to convert bitcoin to IDR money. It takes a couple of minutes and is much cheaper than bringing dollars to convert at a money changer, or withdrawing cash at an ATM. I have bitcoin friends all over SE Asia who are also keen to do trades, so it is easy to get around using bitcoin for me. I have also been dropping off some Ledger Nano S wallets and Trezors for people who ordered from me a while back, which has all been paying for the trip bitcoin is much bigger here....my bitcoin sticker on my luggage and my bitcoin shirt starts a lot of conversations with people. They also have more bitcoin meetings and meetups. I went to some in Malaysia, and in Indonesia, where they have one every week in Bali. Lots of travelers I have met are using bitcoin instead of traveling with lots of money...they have friends or family that send them bitcoin, and they cash it out this side. Also there are some bitcoin ATMs which are easy to use too, and I can easily top up my mobile data, airtime etc using bitcoin on a variety of websites.

Sorry, its hard to check in regularly as I am traveling in S.E. Asia and internet is not always the best. Maybe it should just be under other cryptocurrencies...

If you going to use a web wallet, I can recommend bitgo.com over blockchain.info, you get your own private keys with bitgo. Exodus seems pretty good as a desktop wallet, only recently started testing it and like it so far

Price is going mental....volatility means good profits. I managed to sell some bitcoin @45k on ice3x and buy back @36k on luno doing arbitrage.

Yes, the price is whatever 0.069 BTC is at the time....right now, that is R2489 (@R36085 per BTC)....day before yesterday that was about R2300, the price in Rand will fluctuate. It is bitcoin payment only, no ZAR EFT

FYI, we have a few Nano S devices left, so they are up for sale on our site here: https://www.bitcoinzar.co.za/buy-ledger-nano-s-hardware-wallet-south-africa/ Price is still 0.069BTC including delivery in S.A. by Aramex in 1-3 business days

Are you only wanting to secure bitcoin? I have an original ledger nano, for bitcoin only for 0.035. Its the last one I have, and they are not making anymore since the Nano S is the upgrade with a screen and multi currency. If you are wanting to only secure bitcoin, its perfect, and very secure.

True, a hardware wallet is secure and makes things really simple, but you can totally secure all your bitcoin and other crypto without spending a cent using stand alone wallets, or apps. It is not as elegant, easy to use, and pretty, but it works.

Yes, you transfer your bitcoin and Ether to the wallet. The cost to fund your wallet will probably be network fees on exodus, and luno, I am not sure if luno has a withdrawal fee too. You can still use luno and exodus to buy bitcoin and Ethereum and then transfer it. You can also try ice cubed, they have just recently added Ethereum to their trading platform, so you can buy Ethereum with Rand (https://ice3x.com/eth-zar). Storing your bitcoin on Luno or any exchange means you dont control the private keys, so you are relying on them to secure your bitcoin, which most exchanges do well, BUT there are times when exchanges do get hacked as they are prime targets. There is a saying that there are exchanges that have been hacked, and those that are going to be hacked.

Yes, I have the coinsbank.com one, for about 2 years now, and the spectrocoin card. I think they are all issued from the same company, just rebranded. Usually with a swipe in store, there is only the conversion fee, but from what I have found its pretty much spot on the USD exchange rate for bitcoin. I have used it to draw cash overseas when I was in Asia, didnt worry too much about the fees, but it is high to draw cash. I like the coinsbank one becuase it is linked to a bitcoin wallet. So instead of funding the card with bitcoin, that is then converted to USD for the card, the balance stays as bitcoin, until the moment I swipe the card. I think the Wirex card and some of the other ones you login on the website or app and 'load' the card with bitcoin that is converted. I prefer to keep my balance as bitcoin and ride the price increases and decreases.

I got this from trezor today when I was inquiring about more trezors: "Currently, however, the interest has been increasing with a staggering speed. The number of orders has reached heights, which were unimaginable last year. As a consequence, we will eventually not be able to meet the market demand for TREZORs. We are therefore primarily focusing on increasing the production capacity during these summer months. As production does not scale so quickly, the rejuvenated supply will not be available until August 2017. Therefore, we had to take an anticipatory measure to ascertain that we retain an emergency level of stock: All new bulk orders have an estimated shipping date in the middle of August 2017. The possibility of pre-payment is still available, in order to reserve a desired amount and a date of shipping. We will schedule the orders following order of the incoming payments and we will process them in "first in first out" manner. We deeply apologize for the delay and we are sorry we have had to take this measure." So dont expect anything for a while from Trezor. Ledger too have problems. Dont expect an order placed today to leave the factory before September, you can see this on a notice on their website. They said to me: "Unfortunately we don't have any item left and more than 10,000 orders in the queue and we will not be able to send it earlier." I am sold out of trezor devices, and have some Ledger Nano S devices, but I am selling them at ridiculous prices. The price of bitcoin has basically doubled since I ordered.....I paid in bitcoin, so to make sure I am not out of pocket, I have to sell it for at least what I paid. The next thing is the shipping and tax added onto that price, and then of course some profit. I am selling them for 0.069 BTC which is approx R2650, which is about R1000 more than I wanted to sell them for originally. The upside for the buyer is they can have the device in a 1-3 days if its during the week, delivered to your door by Aramex couriers (delivery is included). At the moment there is so much demand, I can sell them for more and still sell all of the ones I have in a few days. I have not advertised them, and have only been informing people who emailed me and asked to be informed when some arrived, and now you guys. Technically, your bitcoin can be secured without any cost if you use a decent mobile phone app such as Airbitz, Greenbits or Mycelium. The appeal of a hardware wallet is that it is secure, and really easy to use. If you want to secure your bitcoin on a web wallet, and be in control of your private keys, www.bitgo.com is really good.

My personal opinion is that it would be better to buy the crypto straight, your option number 2. Why I think like this is because it gives you options. Firstly, you instantly have 100k worth of crypto that would otherwise take you months/years to mine, and dont have to wait to break even, before mining longer to get the same amount of crypto. In this scenario, if the price is skyrocketing, you immediately benefit from having more value as you already hold the crypto, whereas if you buy rigs, you are out of pocket for a while before you break even. If the price is going up, and you are mining, your revenue might be worth more in Rand as the price climbs, but would still need to break even and would not have as much value as if you had invested the whole amount in the crypto in the beginning. If the price is tanking, and you are losing value, you have the option to stop your losses, and sell your crypto. If the price drops further and then settles, you then also have the option to buy back in at the lower price so that you can gain more value as it starts going up in price. With a mining rig if you have not broken even, and the price is going down, you now are out at a heavy loss, and the revenue being generated is not worth as much as you anticipated....it might even come to a situation where it costs you more in electricity than you are able earn with the crypto, and its cheaper to just turn off the rig. In this case, you now have a rig you cant use, and nowhere near as much crypto as if you had just invested in the first place. You could sell what you have earned already to get back some value, but you would have less than your initial investment. You could of course also sell the hardware to get back some value, but since the graphics cards work pretty hard, you might not get as much for them if you tell anyone you were mining with them....you might have to keep that part a secret when selling. If the price continues to go up while you are mining, then it is profitable, and so other people will also jump onto the bandwagon to make profit too. The more miners that join, the more the difficulty increases, and your profits go down over time as profit is dispersed among the miners....more miners = less profit per miner. The way around this is to increase your mining power to earn more profit, but that means more investment....it is a very fine line. The cost for mining is not only the rig itself, it is also the running costs that take a cut of your profit...electricity for example is the biggest part. A mining rig can easily set you back 1k or more a month in extra electricity bills. If the price is climbing fast, like ETH has been, then it is entirely possible that you will be able to pay for your rig, and mine a bunch more to make a huge profit, but for me personally it is a bigger risk than just buying the crypto. Mining does require some level of knowledge of computer hardware, and possibly even troubleshooting problems with hardware. Sometimes hardware needs to have its drivers changed, or if it does not function properly, you might have to send it back, which means possible down time and loss of earnings. Mining normally also means your cards are working hard, and that means a lot of noise and heat, so you would need a place to put the rig that is not going to disturb you with noise and you might need cooling systems too. Many miners have fans and aircon running too, which again means more noise and electricity cost. When there are things like loadshedding, if you dont have a backup power supply, that is mining time lost, which is valuable to you. You might need to buy a UPS or something which again, costs money. There is also your internet connection, which is a trivial cost, but again, if that is not working, or sketchy, you lose money. If you are tech savvy, and are interested in computers and crypto, I think it is a great exercise to try and make your own rig, but it is not for everyone. It can be very profitable, and it can also be very costly...you need to do your research, and be dedicated as it might take up a lot of your time. I loved my mining days, and only stopped when I moved house, and would love to try it again....if it is purely for profit, and you are not tech savvy, be careful. I think it will be less hassle, less risk, less noise, heat and time spent, to just buy the crypto, rather than to wait months to hopefully get the same amount of crypto you would have had in the first place. If you have some support from the main guys that sell mining rigs, they can help you to make sure it goes as well as possible, so chat to them...but personally, I like the option of being able to trade the full value of the investment, and to get the full gains if it goes up in price, or sell to stop losses if it is tanking.

The ETH price is set by the sellers, just like the bitcoin price, so if there are more sellers, then there will be more price competition. I have done a couple of good trades already with ETH on ice3x, sells, not buys.....