There are two things happening right now; the first one is the booming bitcoin market in Asia.
A recent bitcoin exchange (known as Palarin) made its way to the Philippines not too long ago with the goal of offering migrant workers a way to send remittances home to their families.
The second thing is BitX, a bitcoin enterprise that is focusing primarily on emerging markets. BitX has recently opened an office in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, thus bringing its services to a population consisting of approximately 252 million people. Adam Draper, son of venture capitalist Tim Draper feels that Asia is the prime arena for bitcoin, and so far he’s being proven right. Between BitX and Palarin alone, the continent now boasts a minimum of two big bitcoin businesses, and adoption of the cryptocurrency has never been higher.
BitX made news last August when it managed to raise nearly $1 million (around $825,000 to be exact) through a special seed-funding round. The funds would naturally be used to help the company expand, and expand it has. With the move to Indonesia, BitX is opening more doors and looking to heighten its level of service all across Asia.
CEO Marcus Swanepoel explained the reasoning behind Indonesia, and why it was a prime choice for building new territory:
“We believe that the biggest opportunity for crypto-currencies is in emerging markets… These are markets where financial systems are often inefficient… We believe that crypto-currency technology can have a huge social impact on these markets by making it easier and cheaper to move money… [Indonesia is] very relationship-driven, so you need to spend a lot of time on the ground, have local teams with local understanding and networks, local operating structures, and also spend a lot more time in building a brand that people can trust, as these are often very low-trust environments.”
