Cryptocurrency popularity continues to rise in Africa and South Africa is leading the revolution. South Africa has the highest Cryptocurrency adoption rate of all African countries and as Google statistics show: For the past 30 days and for the past 12 months, South Africa leads the Google search for the word Bitcoin by a large margin! They are followed by Nigeria and Ghana, making them great environments for Blockchain and Crypto development!

South Africa has the highest Cryptocurrency adoption rate of all African countries and this is the reason why the South African Revenue Service wanted for Cryptocurrency winnings to be taxable. Every South African resident must declare winnings and losses they’ve made in trading or holding Cryptocurrencies and the South African Revenue Service have outlined that cryptocurrencies are not only a digital asset class, but also intangible assets that are not currencies.

Regarding mined Cryptocurrencies, the South African tax agency decided that they will be treated like trading stock, until they are exchanged for fiat currency. The South African deputy governor, Francois Groepe sided with the South African Revenue Service agency, because he and the South African central bank do not see Cryptocurrencies as viable currencies. According to him, Cryptocurrencies do not meet the required standard of money and said that the Revenue Service agency is treating them like digital tokens.

South Africa has one of the highest Cryptocurrency adoption

Recently, a study was released by the African financial service company, Old Mutual. They released their Investment and Savings Monitor survey for South Africa and the study revealed very interesting statistics for the South African Economy and Cryptocurrency Ecosystem. In this article, I will write about the most interesting statistics out of the survey, but if you want to read the whole study, click here.

38% of residents of South Africa that knew before about the digital asset class – Cryptocurrencies, wished they invested their money in Crypto

43% of South Africans consider Cryptocurrencies as a pyramid scheme

60% of South African residents aren’t aware of Cryptocurrencies and only 4% of the people have a deeper understanding of Cryptocurrencies

43% of South Africans are confident in the South African economy

71% of the surveyed people think that you can make a fortune with Cryptocurrencies

17% of people have a low understanding of Cryptocurrencies and 19% have only heard about them recently

From the whole world, Bitcoin is most searched for in South Africa

An interesting fact is that the term Bitcoin is most searched in Google in South Africa by a large margin. Bitcoin is mostly searched for in South Africa for the last 12 months and even for the last 30 days, Google Analytics says that South Africa is number one. Another interesting fact is that for the past 30 days, the top 3 countries that search for Bitcoin are all African Countries. Nigeria and Ghana are closely following South Africa. This means that African countries have a high interest toward Cryptocurrencies. Here are the top countries that are interested in Bitcoin, according to Google Analytics:

South Africa Nigeria Ghana Helena Slovenia

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