South Africa is quickly becoming a hotbed for crypto activity, and nothing echoes that sentiment more than Cyril Ramaphosa’s son wearing Bitcoin socks to his inauguration. That’s right, the son of the new South African President used his father’s inauguration ceremony to give a shout out to Bitcoin – way to go. Tumelo Ramaphosa is a well-known Bitcoin enthusiast and is pro-blockchain technology. With his father now in power, we could see more crypto activity taking place in South Africa.
The son of the newly inaugurated South African president wore Bitcoin socks to his dads inauguration. Legend!!!@ScuderiaTumi pic.twitter.com/GLpUcZ1hjY
— Ran NeuNer (@cryptomanran) May 25, 2019
Crypto VAT Laws Falling Into Place
Back in August 2018, South Africa became one of the first countries on the planet to introduce crypto VAT laws. Under the new laws, crypto transactions could be exempt from paying VAT. However, under these laws buying goods to use for crypto purposes – such as mining rigs, computers, and electricity – will still incur a VAT charge. This is a huge step forward for the country and it’s one of the first to do so, making it a crypto tax pioneer.
Crypto Exchanges Going Live
At the end of December, VALR launched South Africa’s largest range of tradeable cryptos. There are now more than 50 trading pairs available on the exchange, and South Africans are lapping up the ability to trade so many crypto pairs. If that wasn’t enough for South Africa, HashCash launched its crypto payment platform, meaning merchants can now start accepting crypto for goods and services. A few weeks later, Pundi X followed suit and launched its XPASS card and POS system in South Africa. These are all huge steps for the South African crypto market and are a sign of its health.
Watch Out for Scams
Just like everywhere else, the South African crypto scene is rife with scams. Some of these scams are so good that even the South African national cricket team fell for one. Earlier this year, the South African cricket team posted a Tweet encouraging people to send 0.01 BTC to a crypto wallet to be in with the chance of winning 20 BTC. A number of people fell for the scam before the account quickly deleted the Tweet and apologized. This just goes to highlight how even tech-savvy people can fall for crypto scams.
The move from Tumelo Ramaphosa is definitely a publicity stunt, but it’s helping to spread the word of Bitcoin around the nation. Crypto helps solve many challenges that people in sub-Saharan Africa face, as it will finally give the unbanked access to financial systems.
