Bitcoin ATMs Open in Singapore even as the once-dominant Mt. Gox exchange said it was filing for bankruptcy protection

March 4, 2014 Leave a comment

Feb 28, 2014

Bitcoin ATMs Open in Singapore

By Newley Purnell and Lorraine Luk

Bitcoin machines began operating in Singapore and Hong Kong even as the once-dominant Mt. Gox exchange said Friday it was filing for bankruptcy protection.

Tokyo-based Mt. Gox said it lost almost 750,000 of its customers’ bitcoins, marking the collapse of a marketplace that was once dominant in trading the virtual currency. Bitcoin, a virtual currency created in 2009, rose sharply over the course of 2013. At the start of last year, one bitcoin was valued at an easy-to-invest $13. By November, its price had soared to nearly $1,200.

The bankruptcy filing however didn’t bother Hungary native Andras Kristof, chief technical officer of Singapore-based Tembusu Terminals who unveiled Thursday a custom-built bitcoin vending machine inside a small bar called The Spiffy Dapper, located in central Singapore’s Boat Quay district. It allows users to insert Singapore dollars and receive, in return, a piece of paper with a private code to be used with a bitcoin wallet.

Tembusu has three employees and is self-funded. Kristof said the company’s goal is to “provide a good service” to the local bitcoin community, and isn’t concerned with making money off the device for now.

“Bitcoin should be easy to get and spend,” he said, noting that he estimates as many as 40 establishments in Singapore now accept the currency.

Singapore’s Inland Revenue Authority announced recently it would treat bitcoin as a service, not money or currency, and even published tax guidance.

Norma Sit, chief executive of Singapore-based bitcoin ATM maker Numoni, told The Wall Street Journal her company opened one machine yesterday and two more today, with another set to open this evening. They are situated at various locations throughout Singapore.

Zann Kwan, owner of Singapore-based Bitcoin Exchange, said she unveiled her company’s first device this morning at the city-state’s Citylink Mall. Similarly, her device, made by British Virgin Islands-based maker Lamassu, allows customers to insert cash to convert it to bitcoin. The Tembusu machine is “not competition,” she said. “It’s good for the community.”

Hong Kong-based Bitcoin platform ANXBTC Friday launched a shop in a commercial building in the Sai Wan area. Customers can provide U.S. or Hong Kong dollars to an employee, who makes a transaction on a laptop. Tariq Dennison, a Hong Kong-based American financial consultant, purchased $100 Hong Kong dollars ($13) of bitcoin, saying he wanted to try out the service.

“People lost money from the shutdown of Mt. Gox because they saved their bitcoin in the exchange system.” he said. “I feel secure with my bitcoin as I save them in my personal electronic wallet.”

 

Filed under Macro Trends

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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