Taiwan Bitcoin Scenario
"Every day I felt I might not be able to see the sun the next day" Yuk Kwan
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"If I was forced to predict, I would say that it would hit $1000+ in 2016 and $3000+ in 2017. Looking forward to seeing how this all plays out!"
At the end of April just prior to leaving Australia and heading for Taiwan I bought some bitcoin because I'd heard there was going to be another surge, and hopefully there will be.
At first I was apprehensive because the legalities surrounding bitcoin here seemed a bit grey. I was under the impression it was illegal due incidents like the 竹聯幫( United bamboo gang ) receiving a US$1.68 million ransom paid in bitcoin from the family of the chairman of Pearl Oriental Oil Yuk Kwan:
And the money laundering racket they broke up out at Taoyuen. I even had funny paranoid thoughts at the airport about being questioned about my Trezor if it showed up in the baggage xray
With only 11 days until the halving anything could happen Even if it goes into a massive bubble I doubt if it bursts the price will crash lower than 700, but who knows there's a lot of chaotic elements involved. Like the Dao hack which somehow affected the market tone for all cryptocurrencies in general, that must be a very important experiment.It sparked a massive sellout. Were those who solds' fears unfounded? Overnight the Dao lost about 105 million US dollars. But bitcoin bounced back up , but not to as high as it dropped from. Was it the people in the UK thinking the pound might drop in the short term due to the UK wanting out of the EEC? Like the way Chinese are buying because of the devaluation of the yuan. They'll probabaly do better without the EU which is why they're confident to move away from it . In the meantime they may as well buy bitcoin I guess
Actually its easy to buy Bitcoin at any of the 3000 or so Family Marts. Here in Taipei, there’s literally a Family Mart on every cornerThis just goes to show there's so much infrastructure in place for bitcoin here . Its primed to go and people may just need a reason to become bigtime bitcoin buyers. For instance did you know that at Purse if you buy with bitcoin from amazon you will get 15 percent off any purchase?
Now if you do buy bitcoin at Family mart it may help to take a Taiwanese friend the first time .
The first step is to register at an exchange here, and its either Maicoin or BitoEx . I haven’t tried Maicoin but would like to check it out.
Its possible to buy at any physical ATM, by internet banking or a deposit at the counter They freeze the exchange at the moment you agree to pay if the payment is recieved within 15 minutes so a deposit at the counter isnt recommended because it could take some time
For BitoEx though you will need an email address and a Taiwanese phone number.
To obtain a phone number its just a matter of walking into Chuang Hua Telecom or My phone/Taiwan mobile and showing them your passport and possibly another form of ID too, maybe a drivers licence. I used my other passport because I have two (An Australian one and a British one) The first outlet for Chuang Hwa telecom I visited couldn’t get their head around that being two forms of ID so I had to go to a main branch in New Taipei city to sort it out. I think they thought it was funny, please remember I don’t speak chinese
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"BitoEx not only a wallet"
They use QR codes for everything here. I use them while adding people on line occasionally but that’s about it.
Regarding the buy and sell price they are offering
Its 10:57 Taiwan time here and a little expensive comparing with the charts
$1=32.5NT
If I sold I’d get $608
The price at bitcoinity is $631, and Cryptocompare is also $631
But I don’t mind the exchange has to make their money somewhere I guess.
So, buy bitcoin via the family mart kiosks, just click buy bitcoin and then click Transfer to wallet
If you follow the steps the bitcoin you purchased will be in your wallet in no time
Then we are taken to this page
Theres 3 or 4 steps
Then when you click this you see somewhere to input the order numbers
Now you can see the email address associated with my account and it wants order numbers
These are on the receipt that you print out at the family mart kiosk
Theres about 26000 family marts in and around Taiwan. Simply enter a phone number and password. And then print out the receipt. Take it to the counter and pay in cash. Then type in the numbers on the receipt here. First the password you used at the kiosk then the order number on the receipt. Then the money/ bitcoin is credited to your account There are also some youtube videos like this one that may help at the family mart kiosk
Hope you liked this post
Wow. It just occurred to me that this can work in nearly any country, not only in Taiwan.
Well, I don't see this coming to Norway anytime soon (tax authorities claims that one should pay 25% VAT when buying bitcoins, for one thing), but at least the concept of consolidating services in the local supermarket is not new. For long, Norwegians have been able to deduct cash from their debet cards in the shops (it's good for the shops too; the less cash they have, the less risk of robbery, etc), in some of the shops one can deposit money to the account as well, sending and receiving post packages in some of the shops, playing on the national lottery, buying prepaid call cards for the telephone, etc.
Should work everywhere. yeah Australia still thinks bitcoin is a commodity and does tax it but as to how much I'm not sure..... thats a big tax on bitcoin there ,I just noticed you can even buy a skype voucher at a family mart kiosk
also Japanese banks have officially now recognised bitcoin as money I heard, hopefully it will happen everywhere one day.