I’m a resident of Helsinki. I’m originally from the Philippines, and my wife, from China. Just like all of you here, we share a common passion about BitCoin.
Let me just share on this thread some Bitcoin news and trends in Asia. As of writing, there are now four Bitcoin companies in Manila, Philippines. One company, www.buybitcoin.ph is actually co-founded by Lasse Olesen (Danish) of bitcoinnordic.com
Aside from buying, selling, and mining, Bitcoin businesses in Asia are attempting to tap on remittances (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittance). China and the Philippines are two of the top recipient of remittances in the world. Last year, in the Philippines alone, Filipinos based abroad sent remittances to their families back home in an amount of over $13.9 Billion. It’s such a big business for banks and remittance centers like Western Union.
In Finland, there are about 2,500 Filipinos and 10,000 Chinese. while in the whole Nordic region there are about 30,000 Filipinos, and over 100,000 Chinese. I’m thinking that it could be a potential market for Bitcoin.
Here are some articles about the Bitcoin in the Philippines:
Hello and welcome to our forum! I think that remittance is one of the key markets for Bitcoin. The solution is making sure that the possibilities for exchanging bitcoins locally are excellent at both ends. There has been progress in both Philippines and China, which is very good. Here in Finland we’ve had good exchange services such as ours for a while now. One thing our service is lacking is English language support.
It’s also quite important that the people on both sides of the globe are actually aware that Bitcoin provides a new possibility for remittance.
We’re interested in this area so I will contact you with a PM to see if we can talk about this in more detail.
Ole hyvä. Thanks for the comment and for welcoming me to the forum. Yes, you are right, Bitcoin can be used as an alternative form of sending remittance, but the masses are still unaware of Bitcoin. That is one great dividing wall. Not to mention, the value of Bitcoin is very volatile and government regulation is starting to creep in. Anyway, I believe its just a matter of time, before Bitcoin becomes popular. For start-up companies, its important to patiently hang-on until the perfect time comes. I’m just in Helsinki, so feel free to contact me if you think the idea of “Bitcoin as a remittance” is worth a try. Hyvää työnpäivää
