Where to spend Bitcoin in SA — and what matters for adoption

Since launching BitcoinFriendlySA in May this year, I’ve written several posts exploring the first part of that story:

1. Stores that Accept Bitcoin in South Africa
2. Where to Spend Bitcoin in Cape Town
3. Where to Spend Bitcoin in the Winelands‍

When I started, my focus was mostly on businesses that knowingly accept Bitcoin. That meant excluding the 31,000+ merchants that accept Bitcoin via Luno Pay’s Integration with Zapper. If I’m honest, the logistics of listing all those businesses would’ve been wild.

But the landscape has changed.

MoneyBadger has since partnered with Scan to Pay, Zapper, Peach Payments, and Yoyo, enabling Bitcoin payments at hundreds of thousands of stores nationwide, from Bootlegger, Makro, Clicks, and Vida e Caffè to Engen, Wimpy, and Vodacom.

And it got me thinking: Does it even matter if a business knows they’re accepting Bitcoin?

I’ve come to realise: it doesn’t.

What matters is that people in South Africa can spend Bitcoin easily and everywhere. That’s what drives adoption, helps it grow into a true medium of exchange, and encourages more businesses to accept Bitcoin directly, without converting to rands, so that we can move closer to Satoshi’s original vision of peer-to-peer electronic cash.

I’ve also come to realise that BitcoinFriendlySA can have the greatest impact as a content resource rather than a directory — I guess in many ways this was always the plan. As I wrote in my recent post on Bitcoin as a medium of exchange in South Africa, the narrative is shifting from “Where can I spend my Bitcoin?” to “How can I spend it?”

With thousands of locations now accepting Bitcoin through these integrations, it’s less about finding stores and more about understanding how to actually spend your Bitcoin.

So moving forward, I’ll devote most of my attention to making BitcoinFriendlySA the resource South Africans turn to when they want to learn more about spending and accepting Bitcoin in South Africa. You may have already noticed this shift, with the guides I’ve published on how to spend Bitcoin across South Africa and at specific locations like Bootlegger and Pick n Pay.

That’s not to say that the directory will disappear entirely. I do plan to add to it occasionally, but content will take center stage — not only because it’s my strength and what I enjoy most but because it ties into my long-term vision.

As I said to Haroun on our recent live stream on Streaming Sats, I see BitcoinFriendlySA becoming the Bizcommunity for spending and accepting Bitcoin in South Africa — not in the news sense, but as a central, trusted resource people turn to when they want to learn how this stuff actually works.

Anyways, that’s a wrap for now.

Cheers,

Nick

‍

P.S. If you’d like to support my work, you can donate directly using the Bitcoin Lightning button below or send sats to nickdarlington@blink.sv from any Lightning wallet.