It’s not too late to join the action

Bitcoin may be the biggest of the digital currencies, but SA investors have plenty of other — perhaps better — options

As bitcoin fever sweeps the world, a growing number of SA investors are jumping on the cryptocurrency bandwagon in the hope of enjoying what has so far been a wild ride.

“We are seeing a massive increase in interest in cryptocurrencies,” says Werner van Rooyen of Luno, one of two bitcoin trading platforms registered in SA as a financial services provider. Reflecting this, bitcoins worth R300m were traded on the Luno platform on December 1.

Gareth Grobler of the other registered trading platform, ICE3X, says: “We estimate that between 200,000 and 300,00 people in SA are now involved in cryptocurrencies.”

But bitcoin is far from being the only cryptocurrency worth consideration. There are currently 1,320 cryptocurrencies available. While most have only curiosity value, there are 17 with market values of Us$1bn or more that are in with a fighting chance of grabbing the growing investor attention.

Bitcoin — which gave the world tamperproof digital public ledger technology blockchain and first appeared on the scene in January 2009 — undoubtedly rules the roost, with a market value of $188bn, or 56% of a market that is worth $377bn.

Ethereum runs a distant second at $45.4bn. But that is pretty good going for the cryptocurrency developed by Vitalik Buterin that launched more than five years after bitcoin came into being.

Compared with bitcoin, ethereum has been the cryptocurrency to back over the past 12 months. While bitcoin’s price rose “only” 1,365% to its current $11,202, ethereum’s price soared from $6.27 to $470 — a phenomenal 7,400% rise driven primarily by aggressive buying by South Koreans.

On their relative merits, ethereum should,