Is it too early to buy or sell product/service using Cryptocurrency in Malaysia?
READ THE SOURCE LINK HERE: http://www.thesundaily.my/news/2018/01/07/proton-suspends-dealership-branch-accepting-bitcoin-payment
This is what happened to one of a Proton car dealer in Malaysia. Statistically speaking, the sale of Proton car is decreasing as they recorded only 70,991 cars sold compared to 72,291 cars sold in 2016. Therefore, Proton car dealers business is affected by this and the dealers need to find a way to sustain their business since Proton also announced to close down underperforming dealers. There are a lot of factors on why the sales went down but I am not going to elaborate on that as I didn't do much study on this. Personally, I always like Perodua car better compared to Proton at the national level. For me, I feel I get a better car with the price I am paying in Perodua. Proton has been on the market for more than 30 years but it is still a bumpy road for them. The only time Proton did well is when a Proton Saga car appeared in Mr Bean's episode. You can watch the episode here.
Back to our car dealer story, with all these negativity surrounding Proton car and the potential closure of his business, he decided to accept bitcoin as a method of payment as a last resort attempt to revive his car sales. It worked for him but with a big price to pay. I believe he has just steered the anger of 'some powerful people' that is not well versed or got a wrong idea about bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general. Hence, Proton decided to suspend the dealership
Based on this story, there are few things that we can learn regarding the state of crypto in Malaysia and how we can manoeuvre our way in increasing the adoption of crypto in Malaysia.
Proton does not want to risk themselves to a confrontation with Malaysia Central Bank because the central bank is yet to recognised bitcoin or crypto in general as a legal tender in Malaysia. Therefore, they have to disassociate themselves with the dealer in order to avoid dragging into the investigation of money laundering by the central bank.
the car dealer is screwed either way, so he opted out this way as he can earn more profit by holding into his bitcoin as he will pay Proton the money in a fiat based on the current value of the cars. Even if he closes down his shop, he might have few bitcoins in his saving that might double or triple down the road in few months time.
The adoption of crypto is slowly increasing and it made an impact once it is accepted for payment of a car without going through a bank to secure loans. I will not be surprised if real estate to be disrupted by cryptos. With the current bitcoin price of RM 66,000 per bitcoin, you will only need about 16 BTC to buy a house valued RM 1 million in Kuala Lumpur without going through a hassle of applying for a housing loan with interest. It is something that can happen if the house seller or developer willing to accept bitcoin. But the risk of getting watched under BNM radar is something not welcoming. Let see few years down the road what is going to happen.
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As for now, I am happy to trade my SBD dollars with any fellow Steemians that offers products or services. Let's start with a baby step and who knows things might get better in the future. What is alien today will be familiar tomorrow. Try recall back your memories asking your father or grandfather about Bank ATM machines.
I heard someone is selling burgers with Steem Dollar. Can I get roti canai and teh tarik using Steem or SBD?
You know? 1 K SBD on today's price will enough to get me through for a 10% down payment plus legal and S & P fees.
I am banking on that!
Let's see how much we can achieve this. I already managed to sell 10SBD for RM 430 through 2-step channels. Although I have to waste a bit on transaction fees, this is another 10% saved up for my mom's surgery, or 1% saved up for down payment!
Either way, when we do it in Steemit properly, we will be able to make things well and who knows? This is the future.
But of course, I probably will not put a banner up like the car dealer, but only promote it here and small group first to test the waters and build the network.
upvoted
ps: If you would like to help a girl to save up for her first semester's Bible college fees (with upvotes), you can read here to know more.
When God is in it , there is no limits
I like the idea of using cryptocurrency to buy things, but I feel that right now the value is a bit too volatile to be used as tender for large ticket items.
True. the highly regulated product/service can hold for now. Lets try to get the low hanging fruits first :)
Having to analyze Proton's performance, the main reason for Proton’s sales dropped is due to the increasingly competitive automotive landscape particularly from Perodua’s cars which offers decent performance at affordable price.
I think Malaysia is not ready to adopt any disruptive technology as the current Uber/grab and Airbnb is still leaving the regulator scratching their heads on how to tax people. That is it. They only want to tax people first, understand and adopt will come later
I totally agree with @cikxaijen about Perodua's performance. I am still very happy with my little kancil.
Hopefully the GST rate does not increase if more people adopt sharing economy platforms like Uber/grab and Airbnb.
Thanks for info-sharing, bro @asyrafahamed!
Came across this news from different sources too...Keen to find out more (^_^)
Keep up your great work bro!
Keep in touch!
Sincerely,
Hung (@iipoh06)
@originalworks @resteemable @steem-untalented @ocd