Bankymoon Introduces Bitcoin Payments to Smart Meters for Power Grids

Most people on this planet will know how the blockchain can be used for various purposes, and the financial ecosystem is just the tip of the iceberg. Just a few weeks ago, the Cambridge MIT Enterprise Forum enlisted a focus group to come up with a real life use case to distribute electricity over the blockchain. One of the more promising presentations....

Bankymoon, a South African-based Bitcoin solutions company, is changing how people pay for utilities, making them more affordable. Bitcoinist spoke with Lorien Gamaroff, founder and CEO of Bankymoon, to find out more about the utility crisis in Africa and what Bankymoon is doing to solve it. Lorien, a South Africa native, shared with us about the crisis and how it is impacting Africans and the education system. Today, Africa is in a state of crisis due to its current unsustainable utility metering system. This metering system is what’s referred to as “post-paid,” meaning consumers pay....

Johannesburg energy management company Invirohub is giving consumers new a way to buy prepaid electricity: bitcoin. Smart meters manufactured by the company will integrate wallet addresses, 3G SIMs and a server connection to compute an up-to-the-minute bitcoin price. Customers simply send their bitcoin to their meter's wallet address and Invirohub will credit them with a commensurate amount of electricity. "All this came together in my mind a few weeks ago where I realised that it wouldn't take much effort at all to integrate bitcoin into our current software," said Technical Director....

Bitcoin may soon be responsible for lighting up the streets of South Africa. Yes, because Invirohub, a South African smart meter developer, has integrated bitcoin payments into its smart meters. These meters allow consumers to "to up" an electricity allowance. Each meter will have a specific wallet address and 3G SIM card for connectivity. Once a user puts a deposit on the address their account will be credited at the current exchange rate. Months ago South Africa's Standard Bank, Africa's largest bank, was said to be testing bitcoin payment systems and more recent news of Johannesburg and....

Africans rarely use Bitcoin payment services as they don’t trust Bitcoin as a currency. Lorien Gamaroff, CEO of Bankymoon, stated to CoinTelegraph that African residents don’t use services that offer the option of Bitcoin payments for utility bills and others because they just don’t trust cryptocurrency. Nevertheless, this could be the perfect alternative to the traditional banking system, especially considering the fact that most of Africa's population is unbanked. South Africa-based startup Bankymoon offers different solutions for utility bill payments that support Bitcoins and other....