Malcolm Duncan, a South African businessman who has lived in Okotoks, Canada, for the past 12 years, has sold his collection of four golden hands of the late former South African president Nelson Mandela for $10 million in Bitcoins (Bitcoin), Calgary Herald reported.
The set weighs about nine kilograms of 99.999 of pure gold. It was cast in 2002 by South Africa’s Harmony Gold mining group, 12 years after Nelson Mandela was released from prison.
Duncan believes he owns the only four surviving casts of Mandela’s hand.
“I’ve had plenty of offers, fast and furious,” said the businessman. “His fingerprints on his gold hands are probably more prominent than mine on my own hands. They really succeeded in getting the definition on the hands.”
Duncan met Mandela twice in the early 2000s while he still lived in his native country, after his company helped supply the equipment for a breast cancer clinic Mandela created.
“Jesus Christ lived long ago. I don’t know when he lived,” said Duncan. “I don’t know when Gandhi lived, I don’t know when Churchill lived, but I certainly remember when Mandela lived. He’s a politician that never, ever can somebody say a single wrong word came out of his lips in his presidency. Never, ever.”
The businessman, who runs Excalibur Shelters, a company that builds emergency and rescue shelters as well as truck accessories, plans to use the funds from the sale to start up a new factory in the U.S., where his company will be expanding in the near future.
So far, Duncan has been paid a Bitcoin deposit that has been converted to $50 000. The rest is due to be delivered in quarterly installments of at least $2m per extremity, starting April 30.
According to Bloomberg, the buyer - Arbitrade, an Ontario-based cryptocurrency company - is weeks away from doing an initial coin offering and is building a facility in Waterloo, Ontario, to mine its own cryptocurrencies and plans to trade others.