Johannesburg, 09 Aug 2019
This week saw an interesting development for investors of digital assets in SA. On Monday, 5 August, AltCoinTrader went live with the trading of real gold and silver on its exchange. In what was a first for African cryptocurrency exchanges, the company has already attracted hundreds of thousands of rands in trading volumes in the days following the launch.
Trading went live at 11am on Monday this week, with 11.32 ounces of gold trading hands in the first 30 minutes, while 41.49 ounces of silver were traded within that same time frame. Within the first three days of trading, a combined total of R1.2 million worth of the assets changed hands.
While making up a significant portion of traders worldwide, South African cryptocurrency traders still pale in comparison with the institutional trading volumes seen in traditional financial markets in SA alone.
This is something CEO Richard de Sousa believes will change in the long term. He says: “It is becoming clear that bitcoin and associated cryptocurrencies are significant stores of value, and as more people realise this, trading volumes in this new asset class will continue to rise.”
In a recent interview with China Global Television, De Sousa said that the deflationary nature of precious metals like gold and silver are why his team considered introducing digital metal trading: “Cryptocurrencies are seen by many enthusiasts as being outside of the bubble of traditional financial markets, and thus, can be a hedge against potential recession. Precious metals have been treated the same way for generations, so it made sense for us to develop a secure, digital method for our users to diversify their cryptocurrency portfolio into these precious metals.”
All gold and silver purchased and traded on the exchange is backed by a real-world,
1 ounce coin equivalent. In the case of gold, the asset is represented by 1 ounce Krugerrands, while silver is a standard 1 ounce silvercoin.
The company is quick to emphasise that no physical assets are kept on its property, with the 1 ounce coins held in reserve with an unnamed retail partner in SA. Should users wish to cash out their gold and silver bought on the exchange, they can only do so in 1 ounce units, and can select either a hand-delivered courier or an option to collect from said retail partner.
Buy up to 20 different cryptocurrencies, and now gold and silver, directly with your South African Rand at www.altcointrader.co.za.