How to start a money exchange business with just $10

AFREUM
4 min readDec 23, 2021

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If I was a young person in Africa, or somewhere else in the world, with time on my hands, a smartphone, a data plan, and $10 in my pocket, I’d start a crypto money exchange business. This is possible today due to peer-to-peer exchanges such as Afreum Cash that allow anyone to facilitate fiat-crypto and crypto-fiat transactions while earning a "commission" on each transaction.

I'll tell you why this is a good opportunity. One of the biggest issues in crypto today is too much friction in moving money from the traditional banking system, and cash, into crypto, and moving value from crypto back into the banking system.

By facilitating such transactions, for which there is growing demand due to increasing adoption, it is possible to slowly build a viable, and profitable, money exchange business from the comfort of your mobile phone. Demand for such services is even higher in countries where there are large populations of unbanked people without access to banking.

So here's how I'd start a money business with $10 by becoming a one-man bureau de change in the crypto world. A traditional bureau de change makes its profit by buying foreign currency (or tokens in our case) and then selling the same currency at a higher exchange rate. It may also charge commission or fee on the purchase or sale. You can do exactly the same thing today with Afreum Cash. Here's how:

STEP 1
I use my $10 to buy AFR in Afreum Cash from a seller that doesn't charge a commission. This is important because I need to maximize my profits. Note, I can also acquire AFR by buying $10 of XLM and trading that for AFR tokens. Using Afreum Rates, I can see that $10 gets me approximately 8838 AFR (at time of writing).

STEP 2
In Afreum Cash, users can set an exchange rate commission above or below market rate of up to 10%. In addition anyone with offers that have 10 successful trades or more qualifies as an Afreum Cash Enabler (ACE) earning a further 10% in rewards. So, maximum potential earning trade is 20% of transaction amount.

Obviously, I need to become an ACE ASAP to maximize my earnings. To get the extra 10% in AFRX rewards I need to create offers with over 10 successful (and legitimate) trades. I can do this with only one offer. So, I create an offer to sell 8838 AFR at a markup of 5% (to cover any short term price risks)
in Afreum Cash.

STEP 3
I believe in the future potential of Afreum (otherwise what am I doing here?), so I can go ahead and recommend Afreum to friends and family, onboarding them into Afreum, and showing them how to Claim the $5 in free tokens that are available for first time Africa-based users, and how to use Afreum Save to earn 10%.

Claim $5 in free tokens as a first time Afreum user.

Once they have signed up I point them to my offer and help them acquire the tokens for local fiat. After every sale I use all the proceeds to buy back AFR and sell at 5% commission. Think of the 5% fee as a cost of helping onboard them and teach them how to make the most of Afreum. With the $5 of tokens you helped them claim, I am sure they wont mind giving me $0.05 for the life changing opportunity I brought to their attention.

STEP 4
Rinse and repeat, and after 10 trades, if I have been smart, my 8838 AFR is now 14396 AFR (probably more if I am buying in Afreum Cash below market price) . After 10 trades, I am now an ACE, eligible to receive 10% of transaction in AFRX rewards. Since I am now earning rewards, I can lower my token/fiat exchange commission to 0%.

STEP 5
My next 10 trades take me from 14396 AFR to 41074 AFR, compounding 10% each time. I could have made much more but I want fast organic trades in Afreum Cash so I am giving up my exchange rate commission. Let's say I spent a month conducting these trades. My 41074 AFR is now worth $46.

Imagine if in the meantime AFR price has increased 20%. My $10 has become $55 in a month and with at most a few days of work. This is the power of compounding and if I were you, I would put Afreum Cash to work turning. your money into even more money while helping onboard people into the Afreum ecosystem.

Note: Not Financial Advice. The price of tokens and fiat may go up and down. ACE rewards program is undergoing a revision at the time of writing. The next version will very likely scrap the 10 trades requirement, meaning that I would be able to compound my $10 dollars even faster.

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AFREUM
AFREUM

Written by AFREUM

Afreum is building a decentralized crypto-based economy on Stellar blockchain. https://afreum.com