Bitcoin in Indonesia has made some even grounds in the past few months. Here comes Bitsharia, “serving as a testing playground to integrate the beautiful philosophy of decentralized concept of bitcoin into normal daily trading and business activity.” Inspired by the good practice of Islamic sharia law, we have spoken with Mauriek Putranta to share more on this venture aiming to serve the Indonesian populace.
Coin News: How did you come across bitcoin? How much impact does it have on your business?
Mauriek Putranta: My personal experience from the Asian financial crisis in 1997, where I lost my first business and the lost of much of the financial freedom in the years afterward led me to bitcoin. From planning to launching approximately took a year, at first the challenges is finding local bitcoin payment processor to process the transactions and the reliability of their service is not really good in the beginning.
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CNA: What can you say is the best thing about your venture in comparison with other crypto-related ventures?
MP: We serve directly to our local community, more than half of them didn’t ever have access to banking account and any financial services or simply do not have access to any internet device. as small venture, flexibility in handling every customer is definitely an advantages over bigger venture and the ability to reach more remote sub district community with the lowest cost.
CNA: What do you think Bitcoin needs to become a more prominent and reliable form of payment?
MP: The problem in our developing country is internet access, many area still not getting internet coverage and the cost from internet provider is considerably high when compare with annual income of most peoples. It may require government support in regulation to boost the penetration and provide infrastructure.
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CNA: How do you think Bitcoin will affect the Asian market in particular?
MP: Asian market is a perfect environment for Bitcoin to success, the combination of high population and difficult local geography and infrastructure will be the biggest impact that will gain from cashless economy and provide financial service to be a catalyst for new entrepreneur and new business venture and opportunity, and most important is Bitcoin can empower local business and community to achieve something that previously impossible. These new business will eventually drives their basic economy that will have domino effect for others.
To be continued…
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