Louis
Louis Nel is a full-stack developer, content creator, and bitcoin enthusiast from South Africa, with expertise in software engineering and fintech. He holds a BA from the University of South Africa and has worked in motoring, marketing, advertising, fintech, and sales industries.
Key Achievements:
Developed projects for bitcoin price tracking and arbitrage.
Explored bitcoin mining with surplus solar power in South Africa.
Authored blog content on bitcoin as a savings tool, outperforming traditional methods amid economic challenges.
Skilled in MongoDB, Angular and Nodejs, SEO, web design, and CMS like WordPress/Joomla.
Professional Focus:
Louis advocates for bitcoin adoption, emphasizing self-sovereignty and parallel institutions. His work contrasts crypto scams with bitcoin's transparency, drawing from personal experiences with regulatory advocacy and community education.
Interests:
Active on Twitter (@louisnel), he discusses South African issues like inflation hedging and youth empowerment through bitcoin. His honest, driven approach makes him a valuable contributor to tech dialogues.
Session
In this talk, I'll share my multi-year journey exposing the Karatbars and GSB scams in South Africa, where unfulfilled gold-backed crypto promises caused investor losses and triggered regulatory warnings. As a whistleblower facing intimidation and SLAPP-style lawsuits, I've seen how centralized MLM schemes exploit hype—contrasting with Bitcoin's transparent decentralisation. Amid SA's challenges like high inflation and unbanked populations, I'll offer lessons on self-sovereignty via bitcoin education and non-custodial wallets. Noting 2025 multi-jurisdictional settlements for refunds, this session highlights bitcoin's role in parallel financial institutions where authorities lag. Attendees get tips to spot scams, build community resilience, and boost grassroots adoption in Africa. As a Bitcoin advocate with experience in savings experiments and security, I aim to empower all levels for a sovereign future.