World’s first physical bitcoin store opens in HK

March 7, 2014 Leave a comment

World’s first physical bitcoin store opens in HK

Staff Reporter

2014-03-03

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Asia Nexgen CEO Ken Lo at the opening of the world’s first physical bitcoin store in Hong Kong on Feb. 28, 2014. (Photo/Xinhua)

The world’s first physical retail store selling the controversial virtual currency bitcoin has opened in Hong Kong.

The 40-square-meter shop, located in the western district of Sai Ying Pun and operated by Asia Nexgen Bitcoin Exchange, officially opened for business on Feb. 28. The local exchange holds a money service operator license from Hong Kong’s customs and excise department.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority views bitcoin as a virtual commodity as opposed to a virtual currency, which therefore enables Asia Nexgen to accept payments to acquire bitcoin the commodity, not bitcoin the currency.

Customers must first provide an ID card and proof of address to comply with customs and excuse rules on money laundering before they can make a transaction at the store through their digital wallets.

The first customer to the store following the ribbon-cutting ceremony spent $HK100 (US$12.90) to purchase roughly 0.022 bitcoins, according to market rates listed on the US-based CoinBase exchange at the time.

Ken Lo, co-founder and CEO of Asia Nexgen, said the store could help raise the popularity of bitcoin. “The biggest issue people have right now is buying the bitcoin. People have to put money in, trade it through an exchange online,” he said.

“Now, you walk into the store, hand over your cash and send the bitcoin to your digital wallet,” he added.

The store opened on the same day that Japanese bitcoin exchange MtGox was forced to file for bankruptcy protection after claiming to have lost nearly half a billion dollars’ worth of bitcoins in an alleged theft last Tuesday.

Lo said the MtGox debacle was only “a drop in the bucket” and that there is no “shortage of demand” for bitcoins at the moment.

Bitcoins were trading at around US$572 on Coinbase on Sunday.

Late last year, China’s central bank stated that bitcoin was a digital currency and prohibited third-party payment processors from providing bitcoin transaction services.

 

Filed under Macro Trends

Unknown's avatarAbout bambooinnovator
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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