23 Jan SOUTH AFRICA AND DIGITAL PAYMENTS - Crypto Exchanges, Digital Payment Systems, Blockchain, Leading Lights (High level 1)
This is the first in an exciting new series of articles that focuses on providing multinational eCommerce companies with comprehensive information on the South African eCommerce and Digital Payments market. South Africa is a progressive and dynamic market leader when it comes to bitcoin, blockchain, crypto and digital currencies. Let’s make our first two articles a high level overview of the “state of the nation”. This will give you a strategic insight into the crypto scene and what it could mean to your online payments and eCommerce expansion to South Africa. EXCHANGES South Africa has a solid offering when it comes to crypto exchanges. Starting with Luno who are a leading global exchange (backed by South Africa-founded Naspers who are a committed member of the Libra Association). Luno are pretty much the African “Coinbase” with offices in more than 40 countries in the rest of the world. Other local exchanges are Altcointrader, ICE3X, Coindirect and more recently Valr. Global leaders Binance and Houbi will be opening in South Africa shortly. DIGITAL PAYMENT SYSTEMS Acceptance of bitcoin for payment is on the low and slow as it is in the rest of the world but with segwit bringing down costs and increasing adoption this could become more significant. Lightning Network is well supported in South Africa from a development perspective with leading developers like Gavin Marshall being involved from the very beginning. The origins of crypto gateway Globee started in South Africa, and Pundi-X is launching POS for crypto acceptance. LEADING LIGHTS South Africa is home to a number of very influential and effective crypto founders and leading lights including Ricardo Spagni (Fluffypony) a founder of Monero, Vinny Lingham founder of Civic, Sonya Kuhnel educating the nation with Blockchain Academy and Marcus Swanepoel founder of Luno. The crypto culture is rampant and intimate and a few mentions are Nona who are a blockchain app development company, and a number of individuals getting educated including Robin Philip doing his Masters thesis in “Digital Currencies and Payments Across Africa” and Jack Tilbury’s “Real Estate on the Blockchain”. Please click here to contact us for your online payments in South Africa and the rest of Africa. ================ Our thanks for inspiration to "South Africa Ranks First in Both Crypto Ownership and ... - breakermag." 20 Feb. 2019, https://breakermag.com/south-africa-ranks-first-in-both-crypto-ownership-and-income-inequality/. Accessed 1 Sep. 2019.