Meet Charmaine, the business owner who says crypto has already proven its worth

This testimonial reflects the real-life experience of a customer who used our platform. We do not claim that they are typical results that customers will generally achieve. Read full disclaimer

Co-owner of a small family-run workshop in the coastal town of East London, South Africa, Charmaine’s entrepreneurial instincts meant bitcoin was a natural fit.

The covid pandemic caused financial hardship for many. Among those is Charmaine, who was on the brink of losing everything during South Africa’s lockdown before a well-timed crypto investment with Luno “saved her business”.

How a well-timed investment changed everything

“When the lockdown hit, things were very bad for us financially. All we had was a roof over our heads and our business had no income whatsoever,” says Charmaine.

Desperate, Charmaine and her husband evaluated all of their possible options. They eventually stumbled upon Luno, which seemed to offer a potential way out of their crisis.

After countless hours of research into how Bitcoin works and looking carefully at the cryptocurrency markets, Charmaine and her husband eventually bought their first crypto.

Even armed with all that knowledge, there are still no guarantees when it comes to investing. However, a healthy dose of well-deserved luck meant they bought at a good time, enabling them to sit back and watch their investment soar in value. Today, with more confidence in the space, Charmaine and her husband regularly invest in cryptocurrencies, which now form a large part of their long-term portfolio.

“Using the gains we made, we were able to feed ourselves as well as our entire staff. By extension, this was a lot of mouths. We continued like this throughout the lockdown,” says Charmaine.

As a small business owner and mother, Charmaine knows well how an economy vulnerable to recession can affect business. But now that she is crypto-savvy, she feels confident that her family’s finances will be resilient going forward.

“We want to be prepared for next time and not have to be in the same situation again.”

Crypto gives certainty to an uncertain future

Although Charmaine and her husband leveraged crypto to help save their business and keep staff employed, they’re very aware of the sometimes sudden price changes that can occur in the markets and result in the loss of value in your investment. The key, Charmaine says, has been to zoom out and focus on the big picture.

“We know that everybody else panics and we don’t want to be like everybody else. My husband does the little-old-lady method. He puts it in and he leaves it, despite the dips that come and go. We’ve learnt a lot.”

Looking ahead, Charmaine says the future is exciting as she expects crypto to proliferate throughout her country.

“I think a lot of people are starting their journey in crypto,” says Charmaine. “With our current financial climate, I think a lot of people in metropolitan cities are getting clever with the way they are investing, in the same ways we did.

“With crypto, it’s really proven its worth already.”