Just days ago a video surfaced and made its rounds rather quickly in the bitcoin community.
In case you’re not up to date, the video (Bitcoin in Uganda – Empowering People) chronicled an Ugandan immigrant’s struggle in sending funds to her 20-year-old brother Ronald in Kampala in order to study.
The $40 she would send via MoneyGram costed $10 to send — and took its sweet time to get to Africa.
Which led up so very well into the topic of bitcoin. The woman’s husband dabbled into bitcoin to send back to her brother, Ronald, back home, and emotion got the best of us.
[ot-video type=”youtube” url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrRXP1tp6Kw”]
Ronald set up his very own wallet and received the funds almost instantly. He finds a man who will buy the bitcoins from him, and thus giving him a rapid conversion to the Ugandan shilling.
Except now, the one person who would be willing to give Ronald fiat for his bitcoins is nothing short of missing in action.
“It was a guy, downtown doing mobile money business,” said Ronald to Forbes by Facebook. “Though after a couple of days, I went back to the same guy but I found he had closed. Then this girl who used to work with him told me he had better things to do and that he did not have a lot of customers. And the lady told me he used part of the employer’s money in his bitcoin deals and when the boss [realized] that the guy was using his money in his personal deals, he fired him.”
In all, Ronald exchanged bitcoins with the man twice. And now, well, his only means of exchange has disappeared.
“I hope with time I will find a way of exchanging the bitcoin I was left with to cash,” he said.
So – a rather unfortunate situation indeed, but hopefully with time, another person in Ronald’s vicinity will be willing to exchange his bitcoins. Until then, it looks like MoneyGram it is.
[textmarker color=”C24000″]Source[/textmarker] Forbes