Bitcoin Surges 5% in South Africa, Venezuela With Its 1,500% Inflation May Follow

Though it is not clear the extent to which the weakening South African currency rand will go compared to what is happening in Venezuela, Bitcoin price in the country rose by almost 5% this week.
The sharp rise which happened in less than a day was a reaction to a National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) decision to charge Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.
The announcement caused the rand, which was 3.43% lower at R14.27 to the dollar by late afternoon on Monday October 10 and 1 BTC = R8, 891 on BitX exchange by midnight, to rise to be 1 BTC = R9, 298 by 14:00 on Tuesday.
The price has changed slightly since then – going as high as 1 BTC= R9,499 on Wednesday – but stands presently at R9,353 on the same exchange as at the time of this publication.
Africa’s leading market for Bitcoin
Internet analyst Arthur Goldstuck told Fin24 that the Bitcoin price was also directly impacted by the exchange rate since the digital currency is purchased in dollars.

This post was published at Coin Telegraph on 2016-10-16.