Skip to content
FSCA FSP 49010 (ZA)

The 88Minds Blog

Plain-spoken guides to crypto, forex, payments and property — written by people who build the products, reviewed by the people accountable for them.

RSS
News

Macro Monday

Market Recap Looking back at last week, we saw a mixed bag of figures, the main highlight being the U.S. Federal Reserve Minutes and elections in the United Kingdom and France.

80eight Team3 min read
News

MicroStrategy’s huge gamble on BTC

MicroStrategy is a data analytics company, founded by Michael Saylor (who has since handed over the CEO post to Phong Le).

80eight Team2 min read
News

SA public sector workers earn 50% more than the private sector

Stats SA puts the average monthly salary in SA at R28,220 in the third quarter of 2024, which is 6.6% higher than it was the previous year.

80eight Team2 min read
News

SA’s evaporating manufacturing sector

The chart below is concerning on so many fronts. It shows manufacturing as a percentage of South Africa’s GDP falling from 25% in 1980 to less than 13% today.

80eight Team1 min read
News

Scam city

Most of us in the financial sector have had family members who fell for a scam of some sort.

80eight Team4 min read
News

Some thoughts on Davos

Social media had some fun with a picture of the unelected leader of the European Union, Ursula Von Der Leyen, stepping out of an Audi A8 6.3 litre 585 HP 12-cylinder monster as…

80eight Team2 min read
News

South Africa, we have a gambling problem

Thanks to some good reporting by amaBhungane , we have learned that gambling accounted for 17% of GDP in 2024 – a turnover of R1.14 trillion.

80eight Team4 min read
News

Stablecoins will swamp central bank digital currencies

Remember all the talk about central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and their potential threat to personal sovereignty – where the authorities can snoop on your purchases and put…

80eight Team2 min read
News

Take a look at which jobs are about to disappear

The World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report for 2025 offers some interesting insights into the future of work in the next five years. It’s going to be a wild few years.

80eight Team2 min read
News

Taxpayer collapse imminent?

The Efficient Group’s Dawie Roodt recently told Jeremy Maggs some sobering facts about the state of SA’s finances: Fewer than 4% of taxpayers contribute almost 50% of personal…

80eight Team2 min read
News

The AI power crunch

While SA tries (and has largely succeeded) to solve load shedding, other countries are scrambling to build out power generators to feed the AI monster.

80eight Team3 min read
News

The rand weakens on US tariffs shock (and lower interest rates)

As we predicted at 80eight, the ZAR shot back above R18.20 to the USD on two developments over the last week – the imposition of 30% tariffs on US imports from SA, and the 25…

80eight Team2 min read