Bitcoin Conference in Cape Town – Premier Helen Zille and Monero CEO as speakers

Hey, I’m inspired to hear that the bitcoin funfair has come to my old home town, in Africa. You couldn’t get further from anywhere than the south coast of Africa, except perhaps Tasmania. So when the official “Blockchain Africa Conference” announces itself for 6 March, I no longer feel like a stranger in a strange land of crypto on the dark continent.

I can’t attend since I live somewhere else in the country now, but the top politician in the provincial government, leader of the opposition party, Helen Zille, is a speaker at the event, along with the Provincial Minister for Economic Opportunities and the Provincial government Chief Economist. If that doesn’t make cryptocurrency sound official to you then I don’t know what will. This is a clear sign that bitcoin has come of age. When it gets this big, and official, all the way down at the tip of the last continent possible, namely Africa, then you know bitcoin is now a household word, and mainstream adoption has arrived. Surely! I mean what else do you need?

Ignorant folks like to “dis” something they don’t know about. I do the same thing sometimes, like when I label a wannabe crypto exchange and token recently released here in South Africa, called Safcoin, as a scam. They launch their exchange, I buy some coins at ICO, then try to sell on the exchange but no luck. Buyers are there offering to buy my tokens and I’m trying to sell to them but the order won’t fill. Apparently it’s not close enough to the current price. So neither buyer nor seller can trade. We just sit there watching the price sit in limbo like an ethereal bridge floating in mid air, which neither side can reach. I have to rant a bit over it, then I’ll feel better. Don’t take me seriously. They may be legit, but I’m suspicious.

New exchanges probably have this problem with liquidity or volume. It makes them look broken. The Safcoin looks like a solution to an African problem, that’s why I bought in at ICO in December. That and I want to be patriotic when the first cryptocurrency native to my country comes out. They could help onboard the unbanked in Africa who struggle to send their money home to neighbouring countries when away on “migrant labour” jobs. South Africa is the America of Africa and many flock here to get work, even though the local unemployment rate is around 30%.

Another positive for blockchain and for South Africa is the founder of Monero, Riccardo Spagni (aka fluffypony) who will also be speaking at the conference. It makes sense since he is a South African. Monero is the 14th top coin in coin market cap globally, trading at around $43 a piece. Not bad Mr Pony. Monero is famous as the privacy coin, being the most untraceable and private of the lot, more so than bitcoin. In fact Riccardo will be speaking on exactly that subject. It is obviously his pet theme because he is on a mission to have the entire cryptocurrency industry made private for all traders and investors in all coins. All crypto should be as private and anonymous as Monero. That is his goal. I wish him well. He has a holiday house down the road from me at the beach here. Maybe I’ll see him on my walks one day. Big maybe… Probably too busy at his new university he’s launching.

It looks like the government here in South Africa are well aware of the unemployment problem because they are attending this conference for the specific reason of creating further job growth in the country via blockchain technology and the industries around it.

“Our Vision 2040 is of a highly skilled, innovation-driven, resource-efficient, connected, high-opportunity society for all. Our five strategic goals aim to achieve these objectives so that we can create an enabling environment for higher economic growth and increased jobs, and improve education and health outcomes, and build better living environments for our citizens.” Premier Zille

Blockchain certainly is an emerging technology and the government here in South Africa seems open to it. We already have at least three fully functioning crypto exchanges (excluding Safcoin, which is still subject to scrutiny) all accepting local ZAR currency for the major cryptos like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, Neo, Monero, Dash, Dogecoin, etc between them. With a simple EFT from my bank I can move fiat to the exchange, buy bitcoin, etc and move that to a more liquid exchange like Binance to trade for other cryptos and for potential profit. So crypto is accepted here. Capital gains tax is what you might have to pay each year, of course, if you’re earning within a taxable bracket with your crypto trades, which excludes me. I’m a dabbler, with a few pennies here and a few coins there, just for the sake of learning the industry. I have never paid tax in my life and proud of it. The government don’t tax people as poor (in fiat) as me. I have other stores of “wealth” and other values in life to consider myself golden on the inside.

Tax is for people trapped in the corrupt financial and capitalist system. Tax is for people surrendered to the biggest Mafia in the land – your government. Blockchain and bitcoin is for renegade maverics who operate outside the system, and Africa facilitates that because it is so disordered still. And besides that, the ex-president of South Africa is currently being tried in court for multi-million dollar crimes of fraud, racketeering and corruption. Racketeering is what the Mafia do. In a book called “The president’s keepers” by a local journalist, Charl Pauw, the whole story is revealed of how he got a lot of his money from illegal tobacco smugglers and Cape Town gangsters, how he disbanded the top detective police force, The Scorpions, to prevent them from investigating him, how he fired the top revenue service tax head to stop him from investigating too. This president here in South Africa gets a bigger salary than Theresa May of UK, in dollar value. What a con. And you want me to pay tax to them?

To conclude, bitcoin and blockchain is in town, tickets are pricey but so is life. I recommend attending the conference at the International Convention Center in Cape Town. Go speak to Monero’s fluffypony face to face. Find out more about the need for privacy, without government interference, in a time where the individual is reclaiming his or her sovereignty, as an anarchist in an era where Monarchy is long dead, communism and capitalism have both failed spectacularly, the latter ruining the planet with its need for constant expansion and profit. The capitalist philosophy does not work in a finite world. There are only so many natural resources. It’s not sustainable. Do the math. Look at the planet. Think of the species. Look at Us. Think about it.

Ref: https://cointelegraph.com/press-releases/premier-helen-zille-and-the-western-cape-government-partners-with-bitcoin-events