Investors migrate to safe havens among trade war concerns

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In this edition of Business Day Spotlight, our focus is on cryptocurrency.


Our host Mudiwa Gavaza is joined in studio by Richard de Sousa, senior partner at AltCoinTrader - a cryptocurrency exchange that offers buying or selling digital coins for SA Rand.

AltCoinTrader, has recently added gold and silver to their platform, giving investors a choice to trade between cryptocurrencies and traditional commodities if they feel markets are too volatile.

This discussion considers the current state of crypotcurrencies relative to other stores of wealth and means of exchange, explaining AltCoinTrader's rationale for adding commodities to their platform.

With the ongoing US-China trade tensions, investor uncertainty has been increasing around the world moving some towards alternative safe haven assets. Gold and silver have been on the rise, and the untraditional Bitcoin, has been gaining momentum on this as well, with Bitcoin seeing a surge in price to over $11 000.

De Sousa unpacks how the global economy is affecting Bitcoin prices and how trading volumes in SA have tended to respond. He also takes time to explain bitcoin mining and the challenges faced by that industry.

The last time De Sousa was in studio, he spoke extensively around Facebook’s proposed digital currency Libra. In this discussion, we end of with an update as Facebook has been consulting and seeking approval from regulators around the world.

De Sousa says unless something changes, Facebook does not seem to be a position to launch Libra. The social media giant has so far not done enough to to convince authorities, particularly in the US, of the viability of the Libra platform.

Listen in to hear thoughts around these and other questions.

Business Day Spotlight is a MultimediaLIVE Production.
13 Aug 2019 English South Africa Business News · News

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