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Larry Cooke, Binance

Is there potential for crypto payments to go mainstream in the South African retail industry? Several major crypto exchanges have partnered with payment platforms to make it easier for local businesses to accept, process, and manage crypto payments. And they can do so without needing any deep understanding of these digital assets or taking on price volatility risk, because the crypto is instantly converted into local currency. These partnerships bridge the gap between consumers who want to pay in crypto and businesses that want to offer customers alternative ways to pay without being exposed to market fluctuations. For those who have bought into what cryptocurrency is, what it stands for, and what it enables, the payments use case is the natural progression of this technology from a speculative commodity into a utility, says Christo de Wit, country manager for Luno in South Africa.

Bitcoin was always envisaged as a payment system and it’s right there in the title to the whitepaper from 2008: ‘Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System’. “Whenever I speak about crypto payments as a whole, I always think about the rise of card payments and the fact that, in the early 1990s, cheques made up around 80% of all non-cash transactions,” says De Wit. “I’m not saying that crypto is going to suddenly replace standard financial rails, but I do think there is potential for it to become a very viable alternative.”