By Nancy Thuo

I first heard about Bitcoin in 2014.  At the time I was living in the US and one Bitcoin was going for approximately $400.  As you can imagine, I was amazed and intrigued to find out that there was a digital currency valued higher than the dollar, British pound or Euro.

It was my 23 year-old nephew who introduced me to Bitcoin.  He had immigrated to Canada mid-2012 and had just bought his first car with Bitcoin.  I was amazed.

“You need to invest in this currency”, he insisted as we chatted over the phone. But the concept of digital money was hard for me to grasp so I passed up the opportunity.

The following year (2015) proved to be the year that venture capitalists and your Wall Street types started gearing up for Bitcoin to become an established part of people’s investment portfolios.  Companies ranging from Goldman Sachs to American Express; from Nasdaq to Kleiner Perkins started investing in ventures that support the Bitcoin ecosystem.  Then the New York Stock Exchange launched a Bitcoin index, NYXBT; and the Winklevoss twins (who claim to have been co-creators of the Facebook technology) launched Gemini Trust, a fully licensed and regulated Bitcoin exchange. That was in 2015.

On going to press today the value of one Bitcoin stood at $2,721 dollars.  So if I had spent $800 on purchasing just two Bitcoins in 2014, today I’d be sitting on a good sum of money—a Return on Investment (ROI) that I definitely couldn’t get from putting my money in a fixed deposit facility.

So, what exactly is Bitcoin?  Bitcoin is a digital currency; a virtual programmable currency that is coded to reproduce itself. Other digital currencies include: Litecoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Zcash, Dash, Monero and Ripple. Although the list of digital currencies keeps growing, Bitcoin is the most ubiquitous, globally accepted and valuable crypto-currency.

As you and I know, the digital revolution is upon us. Today you can connect the devices and appliances in your home so that they communicate with each other and remotely control them through your smart phone.  Fitness wristbands use the science of active sensors to monitor: heart rate, steps taken, calories burned, sleep quality etc. Cars have become less mechanical and more like electronic appliances or computers on wheels; sensing when you get too close to another vehicle or even driving itself.

So, like I said … the digital age is upon us which means we shouldn’t be too surprised to learn that there are digital, crypto currencies like Bitcoin being used around the world to purchase anything from a cup of Starbucks coffee to the swankiest Porsche car.

More and more high-net-worth individuals and Fortune 500 companies are investing in Bitcoin and the Blockchain ecosystem. This may have something to do with the fact that experts in this space, predict the price of one Bitcoin will escalate to $55,000 by 2022.  If people like Sir Richard Branson are investing in the digital currency industry and accepting Bitcoin as payment for services rendered then who am I to ignore the opportunity presented by digital currency?

If you want to own digital currency, you can actually go online and buy Bitcoins (https://localbitcoins.com/ or https://kenya.belfrics.com/) or accept payment in Bitcoins if you are in business.  Vendors in Nigeria, Tanzania and South Africa are already accepting Bitcoin payments.  Some companies in Kenya are also accepting Bitcoin when booking hotel rooms, paying school fees or remunerating staff. It’s only a matter of time before digital currencies catch on across Africa.

Now, no one is suggesting that you invest all your money in digital currencies, but any financial advisor worth their salt will tell you the best strategy is to diversify your investments …. in other words put your eggs in different baskets.

To get involved in this new industry/investment opportunity you can buy, sell or accept Bitcoin, but in my view the best way to own digital currency is to mine it from source.  That’s right, you heard me …. Mine Bitcoin.

To learn more about Bitcoin and how to get involved in this industry as a Bitcoin miner, please write to [email protected].