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Malaysia is Directing Its Three Largest Industries to Blockchain Technology

The Malaysian government is seeking to explore blockchain solutions in the nation’s three largest industries: renewable energy, palm oil, and Islamic finance.

A task force named the Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT) will be spearheading the move to adopt blockchain in each industry in order to increase transparency, sustainability, and logistical efficiency according to a report published last week.

Renewable Energy

MIGHT holds talks with energy companies in Malaysia to evaluate the ways they could be using blockchain to increase renewable energy adoption. When sellers put energy on the blockchain, the transparent nature of the system means that they must declare exactly how the electricity was generated for buyers to scrutinize. Through blockchain adoption, buyers can now choose to buy green or renewable energy only, whether from energy companies or even private owners of solar panels with excess energy, a process which is often far more efficient than sending energy over longer distances from non-local power stations.

Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB), Malaysia’s sole provider of utilities, has already looked into blockchain solutions and the General Manager of Innovations stated that the company has been holding workshops to identify use cases and discuss adoption with business owners.

Palm Oil

Palm oil is a controversial product at the moment due to unsavory reports of bad practices and child labor being used in the industry around the world. Blockchain adoption can help identify certified palm oil operations with ethical practices and allow buyers to identify the source of their palm oil before making a purchase.

Around 8% of Malaysia’s GDP comes from agriculture, and 43% of agricultural revenue comes from palm oil sales, making this a major area to undergo blockchain adoption. As well as having benefits for buyers, blockchain adoption would help the government identify and monitor palm oil operations with sustainable practices and regulate accordingly.

Islamic Finance

As CCN has reported before, Islam forbids usury (the collection of interest on a loan) under the principle that money has to be based on a real commodity and cannot simply be generated from more money. Debt creation must be backed by something like gold as opposed to futures as is common practice in Western fractional reserve banking, the system that is to blame for the 2008 world financial recession.

Islamic finance could also see a significant boost by adopting blockchain.

The strict ethical regulations in Islamic banking create higher overhead costs in the industry, and Malaysia is looking into how blockchain could help offset these costs while remaining compliant with Sharia law. Already in the Middle East banks have begun pegging debts to units of gold and representing the debt as a smart contract on the blockchain.

Crypto firms in Dubai and Malaysia have also pegged sums of gold to cryptocurrency units to allow debt creation compliant with Sharia law.

Images from Shutterstock.

June 3, 2024
How To Start A Freelance Business With Minimum Startup Cost?
Freelance. The beauty of being a freelancer is that you are the boss of your own. There is no rules because you set the rules. In terms of profit, you takes 100% of the cut and you have the ultimate freedom to do anything you want.

But here’s the thing. Not many freelancers are successful and most freelancers are struggling to kick off and launch their business. One of the biggest questions is always “How to start a freelance business with minimum startup cost?“

In this post, I’m going to share some simple steps you can do so without losing any hair (seriously).

How to start a freelance business?

There are many freelance businesses that you can choose today (thanks to the technological advancement). Let’s say web development as the most common ones which is also the most lucrative one in the market.

There are two things you should be thinking now:
- How to start a freelance web designer work without any coding knowledge?
- How to start a freelance web designer work with coding knowledge?
Here’s the beauty of freelancing. It really doesn’t matter if you have coding knowledge or you don’t have at all. I know, some of you may not agree with me on this but I’ll share with you more information below.

Create a portfolio for yourself

You need to have a portfolio of your business. At the very least, the portfolio should be clear enough to share the reasons why the client would need to hire you.

It takes time to build a portfolio but it is worth it. More importantly, you should focus on building your brand and portfolio as much as you can.

Be honest with what you can offer

This is where the tricky part is. You need to be really honest on what you can offer. For example, if you lacks coding skill experience, your offering should be heavily based on templates and drag and drop builders. Here’s a real-life scenario for your understanding.

I’m the co-founder of Marketing Lancers, a creative agency in South East Asia. We provide two types of web development packages known as low and high tier respectively for our clients. In the low tier, web development is based on templates and drag and drop builders for fast website development. On the other hand, the high tier web development is geared toward custom made templates which require more time, effort and of course, a higher pricing model.

If you have the coding skill knowledge, then you have no issue building a website from scratch. Now, thinking back, having certain skills (in web development for example) is important but not the ultimate necessity.

How much should you charge?

It really depends. If you are going the low tier pathway, pricing can be way much lower compared to a well-planned and custom made website design. In this case, the price should at least lower by half compared to the high tier package.

For example, a full-fledged and high tier website development may costs you around RM 8,000.00 per project which a low tier website development project may costs you around RM 3,000.00 per project.

What are the recommended website development tools for freelancers?

Last but not least, this is one of the most asked question by most freelancers. There are many tools that you can choose from (here’s a full list of them) but here are our favorites:
- Thrive Themes & Thrive plugins (including 10 WordPress themes and 9 plugins, drag and drop builder, lead generation plugins and membership site integration)
- Divi (drag and drop website builder only with integrated lead generation system)
- OptimizePress (drag and drop website builder only with membership site integration)
Summary: How to start a freelance business with minimum startup cost?

As you can see, you don’t have spend thousands of dollars to start a freelance business. At most, the initial startup costs is merely under $150 for you to start a freelance web development business.

And by just securing your first client, you have already covered your initial startup cost and still make a profit multiple folds!

What are you waiting for? Start a freelance business today!
June 3, 2024
How Good Is Thrive Themes?

June 3, 2024
HYIP Malaysia Guide: Let’s Talk About High Yield Investment Programs Malaysia

I wrote several lengthy posts on High Yield Investment Programs or HYIP’s in the early 2017 and I scrapped the plan altogether due to the risk and the volatile market. Recently, I decided to go deep into online investment in Malaysia (after some pestering from friends).

In today’s post, I hope to share some light on HYIP’s in Malaysia.

Important Disclaimer

Investing in HYIP in Malaysia is legal (lies in the grey zone) but is extremely risky. This means that there’s a high chance of you losing all your money. If that’s your main concern, then you should stop focusing on ‘get rich quick’ schemes and instead, focus on safe investments such as buying shares and cryptocurrency.

If you are one of those in Generation Y and Z, you might think that investing is old school – imagine going through a broker and buying shares and bonds. Boring, right?

Bonus: Learn how to start online investing in Malaysia minus the massive risks. How to invest online using eToro? Click here.

What is HYIP?

HYIP or High Yield Investment Programs are ‘get rich quick’ programs (also known as skim cepat kaya). Extremely high risks and in return, the returns are always much higher compared to normal share tradings and other forms of online investments.

How does HYIP works?

Investors are required to invest an amount into the program with the promise of high returns. In most cases, HYIP’s are often seen providing returns as low as 20% and as high as 50%.

Why will HYIP close down?

High Yield Investment Programs are mostly ponzi schemes or pyramid schemes. The deck of cards will crash one day and the most common question is “when” (and not “how”). When there are more investors, this means that the owners of the programs will be getting a lot of cash with minimum investment.

Will I make money from HYIP Malaysia?

Early adopters or investors in HYIP will make the most money. Generally, a program will take around 3 to 6 months to gain profits before the owners decide to close the programs down abruptly. Therefore, joining in and leaving early is the best way to reduce your risk of losing money from HYIP.

What is the safest HYIP to participate in for Malaysians?

The answer is “none.” Sadly, the risk is just too high. When it comes to HYIP, there isn’t anything as ‘safe.’ Every investment involves risk and HYIP is the highest risk of all. In return for the risk, you will be rewarded with massive profits if you have the right strategies and investments.

Do you want to get the latest news on online investment and HYIP in Malaysia?

I was an active HYIP investor in 2017 and I managed to generate tenth of thousands of dollars from HYIP’s. To be exact, I’ve invested around $10,000 in various HYIP programs and I ended up making close to $55,000 in just 6 months. While I admit I made some losses in the early days of investing, I made way more once I learned the trick to investing in HYIP’s. Recently, I’ve recently started an online newsletter (for free) where you will get daily updates (and tips) on important news on online investment, stock trading and HYIP’s. It’s totally free (for now) and you can do so by clicking on this button below.

June 3, 2024
Which Is The Best Bitcoin Wallet In Malaysia?

June 3, 2024
Investing Online For Malaysian: Complete Guide In Using eToro Platform

Being a Malaysian, I realized that it is really hard to invest online. Firstly, there are many online investment scams and the Malaysian law is rather strict when it comes to investing online. This guide is created to share some lights especially with investing online for Malaysian.

Understanding online investment in Malaysia

There are many (and I seriously mean many) online investment platforms in Malaysia. Do a search for “investing online for Malaysian” and you will be greeted with this familiar sight.

There are pretty much 26.9 million search results which is pretty crazy. And of course, I’m thankful for you landing on this post of mine. I’m truly humbled!

What is online investing in Malaysia?

Instead of getting a broker and buying stocks from the share market in Malaysia, you invest your money on one or more trading platforms. In this case, it means that your buying and trading will be done in the online world, with the help of the Internet.

Is online investing in Malaysia safe?

Everything has risks and the same goes to investing online for Malaysians. You should pay even more attention for online investing because every transaction happens online—thus, the risk of scam is way much higher.

How to know if the online investment platform is a scam?

Typically, I would look at their payout mechanism and the number of feedback they have in the online world.

The access to Internet allows us to find the deepest lies (in this case, scam) by these online trading platforms. You can use Google by searching using the advanced search “online investment platform” + “scam”. You may also search for “online investment platform” on Facebook or Twitter to determine the legibility of the platform.

Another way is to understand the earnings mechanism. Always remember that when it comes to online investment for Malaysian, too good to be true is a God-given sign to ‘run away’.

What is the best platform for online investing for Malaysian?

My personal favorite is eToro (a social trading and multi asset brokerage company that has registered offices in Cyprus, Israel and the United Kingdom).

Apart from being a reputable online trading platform, I choose eToro because of it’s deposit mechanics. Once you verify yourself with a scanned copy of your utility or credit card bills, you can start trading as low as with a deposit of USD $200. In other words, it’s around RM 1,000.00 after the conversion.

For those of you who wants to try out online investing without spending money, you can also use eToro virtual training where you are given $100,000 credit to familiarize yourself with the platform. Of course, it is just a demo version and thus, no real money transaction will occur (and you don’t have to deposit a single dollar).

Here’s a screenshot I’ve taken just moments ago.

As you can see, I invested (virtually) in stocks and I made the most money investing in cryptocurrency. There’s where I made a profit of $54,562.82 (I was given $100,000 worth of virtual currency to test out the demo).

How to start investing on eToro?

Firstly, you need to create a free account on eToro (click here to sign up). The process involves performing a detailed verification and this includes updating your profile, answering a few questions and finally, uploading a copy of your utility bill (to prove that you are real). The verification could take up to 5 days but mine was approved within two hours.

Once your account is verified, the next step is to perform a deposit. Deposit varies based on your nationality and as a Malaysian, I’m required to deposit a minimum of USD $200 to start an account.

On eToro account or dashboard, click on the blue button on the left (Deposit Funds) and you can choose the type of payment method using the drop down button.

Investing online in Malaysia and make money?

Lastly, the most important question to date. How can Malaysian make money by investing online in Malaysia?

While there is no easy way to make money online, the framework to success is rather simple using Warrent Buffett strategy.

Want to make money in online investment? Always remember to buy when people sell, and sell when people starts buying. Do this often enough and you will be making more money than you can imagine (with minimum or no losses at all).

Are you ready to start online investing in Malaysia?

I hope that you will find some jewels in this guide on online investing guide in Malaysia.

Are you an online investor? Leave a comment below and tell me what you think.

June 3, 2024