Source: Pixabay

Over the last few years, cryptocurrency usage has skyrocketed in South Africa, with reports suggesting that around four million South Africans own digital currencies. These reports state that Bitcoin is the most popular cryptocurrency in the country, which isn’t surprising: Bitcoin is the most popular virtual currency globally, with over 190 million users. Other examples of cryptocurrency include Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Tether, Binance Coin, and Ethereum. Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation in the world.

Bitcoin Usage in South Africa

Bitcoin has been adopted by many industries in South Africa, including retail. Most recently, retail giant Pick-n-Pay began accepting Bitcoin at over 2000 stores. This rollout was a long time coming after the South African retailer announced a test pilot in November 2022. The test pilot targeted around 30 stores and was a success. Consumers can now use Bitcoin to buy their groceries, plane and bus tickets, and pay their municipal bills in-store.

Additionally, crypto users can also use platforms like 6Dot50, which allows them to use various cryptocurrencies to buy products from over 80,000 retail stores. These stores include Checkers, Wimpy, Steers, and Game, and users purchase vouchers using crypto, which then gets converted into digital rands.

South Africa’s online casino industry is also growing, so adopting cryptocurrencies is an intelligent business move, and many have gone down this route. For example, Yebo Casino is an online casino South Africa platform that became the first Bitcoin casino in the country. There are many advantages to using Bitcoin in online casinos because it gives players more control over their transactions since Bitcoin is decentralised and no third-party authority is involved. Players can use their Bitcoin wallet to send funds to an address provided by the casino cashier, and these funds are then converted into South African Rands.

Source: Pixabay

What Does The Future Hold?

Despite its popularity, the acceptance of cryptocurrencies has been relatively mixed in Africa. That is especially true in countries like Nigeria, which faced a bank ban back in 2022. Still, this ban didn’t stop cryptocurrency usage from increasing in Nigeria. Last year, there were a reported 33.4 million Nigerians trading cryptocurrencies, and many cite factors like inflation and a lack of traditional finances as a source of this. The world has also turned inherently digital, so cryptocurrencies’ continued success in countries like South Africa and Nigeria is high despite mixed opinions. In fact, Nigeria is reportedly planning to legalise Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies despite opposition in an attempt to keep up with global trends.

Cryptocurrency usage has been widespread for a number of years, but now with more attention being put on digital payments over cash, the popularity of crypto is likely only to get stronger. Some countries have invested more in cryptocurrency, such as the United States, but South Africa and Nigeria are both on track to be competing with the US in this market. Moving forward, it will be interesting to see what other industries in South Africa adopt cryptocurrency outside of retail and online gambling.