South Africa’s Bidorbuy Sees Six Fold Increase with Bitcoin

Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has issued orders pertaining to the regulation of cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings (ICO), and cryptocurrency mining. He wants changes made to the Russian legislation to regulate cryptocurrencies and tokens. Mining operations will also be registered and taxed. The prime minister and the central bank governor will be responsible for completing the orders by July next year.

Roughly a year and a half ago, online South African marketplace, Bidorbuy, the largest of its kind in the country, began what was then-viewed as a radical experiment: the Johannesburg company allowed its customers to pay in bitcoin.

The company uses Ebay’s model, bringing together sellers and buyers in an auction environment. It’s a haven for smaller sellers in the region where buyers can often purchase goods and services at a discount.
Its CEO, Jaco Jonker, explained while transactions in the world’s most popular cryptocurrency remain a fraction of the site’s overall revenue, “the adoption rate of this new and not very well understood method of payment is promising and we expect to see steady growth in the future.”

“As with any innovation, it takes time for people to get used to it,” he told Tech Financials.

Although the first full year saw a “steady increase both in the number and in the value of transactions paid with the bitcoin digital currency,” summer produced “a noticeable decline, which can be attributed to the upheavals in the bitcoin community,” the article asserts, most-likely referring to the bitcoin cash fork.

By fall, “the number of bitcoin payments on Bidorbuy increased by threefold,” and “the value of goods purchased with bitcoin increased almost 6.5 times,” Tech Financials notes.