From trade to cash in hand in a few hours
TWO trading hubs exist in South Africa: bitx.co.za and ice3x.com.
“They operate like a classic share exchange or foreign currency market,” said Sandton-based trader Mike Niemand.
“You buy or sell a coin, or a portion of a coin — they go down to a 100 millionth (0.000 000 01) of a coin, called a satoshi.
“I trade on several sites, but bitstamp.net is my favourite — its legal offices are based in the UK. Bitx.co.za is run by some very bright guys in Stellenbosch.”
Niemand switches coins to and from the local and UK trading hubs. “Let’s say you made some coins on bitstamp.net: you can transfer them back into your bitx.co.za account.
“Yesterday at 4am, I sold a coin and straight away did a deferral to my local account. By 8.30am the money was in my bank account. Before the banks had even opened, I’d got my cash.
“Money converts in your account to [bitcoins] and then you transfer that to your digital wallet. When a transfer like that happens, it goes on the block chain and gets confirmed by the miners.
“At the end of a trading session, either pay your balance back into a bank account or transfer it to your bitcoin digital wallet on a secure computer.
“About 12 750 000 of the coins have been discovered, bought and sold. The market cap on that is about $5.6-billion [R57-billion].”
This week the coins were trading at $446 in the foreign market and R4 850 in South Africa.
“Bitcoins should not be left in hot storage, such as on a public trading site. All coins should be kept in cold storage,” said Niemand. “Cold storage is off-site with no internet connectivity whatsoever.”
For more information, contact Niemand at mike@softeqa.com or visit softeqa.com