Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa May 2018 | Page 60

ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENTS
ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENTS
Cryptocurrency Mining
The new gold rush?
BY RUSSELL BENNETT
A
nyone who doubts that the
cryptocurrency market has real
significance, need look no fur-
ther than local crypto operation Bit-
mart. Founded late in 2014, the com-
pany has grown explosively over the
past four years, adding innovative new
services and offerings for its customers
as it goes, placing it at the top of the
pile of the local cryptocurrency market.
In addition to the three dedicated
crypto mining facilities it currently
operates, Bitmart also provides mining
parts and fully built up machines to
SA cryptopreneurs. The company can
literally provide any crypto mining kit
you could possibly need, ranging from
small GPU-based rigs which double as
work/gaming machines to huge, enter-
prise-grade racks packed chock-full of
cards. It is also the official supplier for
various ASICs (Bit'#(, ((5Avalon6

-#(#.35()5as well as hardware wallet
vendors (Ledger, Keepkey, Trezor).
The Shepherd service strives to en-
sure that even customers who are look-
ing into the risky proposition of acquir-
ing second-hand mining equipment
can do so assured that it is working
as it should.
ry; “We were one of the early adopters
in South Africa. In 2014, in the course
of running a successful Web Develop-
ment business, we started picking up
these huge spikes in the search results
for Bitcoin. So we set up our first farm
using Antminer S4 and S5s, and very
shortly thereafter we were upgrading to
S7s. But once we launched our website
, things really started heating up and we
actually started servicing a flood of in-
terested international customers before
other South Africans caught on to the
BITMART TIPS FOR BEGINNERS
1. Power cost is the governing factor, so first determine what you
will be paying for power. Anything more than R1.50 /kWh will start
to erode your profits.
2. Diversify. If you can afford it, purchase more than one machine
and specialise each on different coins, that way you cover your
bases – if one of the coins you are mining collapses in value, it’s
likely that one of the others will have risen. And in this market,
value increases can be sudden and stratospheric.
3. Internet stability is also essential. Your connection doesn’t have to
be the fastest, or the fattest pipe, but any downt ime is lost profit.
4. Take sound advice from reputable players who have been in the
market for some time. There are a lot of new, fly-by-night players
in this space now, eager to give bad advice or rip new crypto
players off entirely.
5. For more, peruse the Getting Started guide on Bitmart.co.za.
How it started
Jacques Serfontein, CEO of this bur-
geoning corporation, picks up the sto-
58
MAY/JUNE 2018 SA Real Estate Investor Magazine
wave. It went really well, some of our
customers saw ROI in a month and a
half !”
“That was when things really ex-
ploded!” continues Serfontein. “So we
went into retail, opened up our shop
here in &-*,/#., and were forging
partnerships left and right with sup-
pliers of leading mining hardware and
software. Our latest addition to our
product portfolio is our Forex trading
fund built on crypto assets, and our
trade signals services which provides
crypto traders with daily signals to help
them make profits in this volatile space.
We have a full-time technical analyst
who makes absolutely certain about the
fundamentals of every trade to ensure
we are providing our clients with the
best possible information.”
Not even the founders of Bitmart
could have anticipated the levels of in-
terest in cryptocurrency over the past
few years. “It’s insane, when you have
an online shop and you don’t have to
advertise, don’t have to market your of-
ferings at all. My sales people just sit
and field calls, taking orders. There’s
no cold calling, no hunting around for
customers. Compared to other invest-
ments, well let’s just say I’ve had cus-
tomers come in here with properties
that they are renting out, who have
ejected their tenants and replaced them
with mining farms!” he explains.
CRYPTO PRICE TRACKER APRIL 2018
BTC
Starting out the month from near its recent lows of $6200, there was
only really one way for the price of Bitcoin to go during the month. De-
spite a mid-month wobble ostensibly caused by the tax deadline in the
US market, BTC has tracked steadily upwards through the month, yet
again proving the “Bitcoin is dead” prophets of doom, well, dead wrong.
At the time of writing, the price is hovering around the $9200 mark,
preparing to test the $10 000 levels once more. That’s a nearly 30% gain
in one month, and this despite Bitcoin’s dominance of the total crypto-
currency market (currently around $450 billion) steadily slipping lower.
Price prediction for December 2018: $20 000.
How it works
In addition to being able to configure
your own mining rig to precisely the
specs you require on the fully-fea-
tured web site, smaller customers can
purchase affordable Moonlander USB
miners which will plug in to any sys-
tem with a spare USB slot and deliver
5 MH/s hashing power straight away.
It may be a relatively small number
considering that current GPUs hash
at around 30, but you can purchase 5
of these sticks for the same price as a
GPU and run them on any machine
without any further hardware invest-
ment needed.
As for concerns regarding regula-
tion, Bitmart like many other crypto
operations across the globe welcome
the introduction of guidelines and clear
taxation rules on their industry. “Reg-
ulation is a very good thing. First off,
it forges the alliance between govern-
ment and the crypto industry, which
gives it more life in the market. As soon
as SARS recognises the crypto market,
it can start to be incorporated into the
economy as a whole. /,5.,5-#!(&-5
-,0#5�, profits of 270% and
then 320% over just the past two months!
here’s no other way5of turning that
kind of profit in any5other market that
I know of today.”
Whether the crypto industry contin-
ues to boom or bust, there’s little doubt
that it has dredged the scenic town of
Mbombela), capital of Mpumalanga,
from being one almost forgotten in the
annals of gold mining history, into a
leading force in the new era of digital
mining operations.
ETH
Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency and the token which
gave birth to smart contracts, opened April just kissing the $400 mark.
It continued to wobble slightly, sinking as low as $370 before the rally
picked up, and from there it has appreciated rapidly through the month
to close at a peak of $687. Do the math, and that’s a gain of more than
50% in the period. And ETH wasn’t even the top performing crypto but,
like Bitcoin, is becoming somewhat more stable as market acceptance,
and a slew of regulations across the globe, begin taming the wilder side
of the crypto environment. Price prediction for December 2018: $2 700.
SA Real Estate Investor Magazine MAY/JUNE 2018
59