On Wednesday, South Africa celebrated Freedom Day, which honors the country’s first post-apartheid democratic elections in 1994.
Cointelegraph reached out to different notable people in the South African crypto community to see what the holiday meant to them. BitcoinZAR, a South African Bitcoin advocate, noted that “Freedom Day means you are free to use your own money to live your best life”and I add:
“We are free on Freedom Day to choose Bitcoin instead of losing value to government money. Stop aiding and abetting state capture, corruption and looting in South Africa. Vote with your money and buy Bitcoin.”
Several cryptocurrency-related businesses have sprung up in the nation, including Luno, a cryptocurrency exchange, while a number of businesses now accept Bitcoin payments, including retail stores and travel companies.
Founded by two South Africans in 2013, Luno now has 10 million customers in more than 40 countries. The company’s rapid expansion was demonstrated by adding a million new customers in four months last year. In 2017, South Africa’s largest online retailer at the time, Pick n Pay, began accepting Bitcoin payments in one of its stores, suggesting the potential of cryptocurrencies as a form of payment.
Freedom day is celebrated today in South Africa. Freedom is a scary notion. To be free one needs to accept personal responsibility. #bitcoin will naturally stir you in the direction of learning and making choices instead of waiting for those in power to hopefully take care of you pic.twitter.com/Ib7h50XAdq
— UNRAVEL SURF TRAVEL (@UnravelSurf) April 27, 2022
Freedom Day is celebrated today in South Africa. Freedom is a terrifying notion. To be free one needs to accept personal responsibility. #Bitcoin will naturally push you in the direction of learning and making decisions instead of waiting for those in power to take care of you.
Unravel Surf Travel is a South African travel company that started accepting Bitcoin in 2015. According to the travel company, since 2011 it has mainly been serving the Russian and Eastern European market, offering surf trips to South Africa. The region is currently in turmoil over Russia’s military incursion into Ukraine. Western sanctions and fiat currency volatility have made Unravel Surf Travel customers more open to paying for trips in cryptocurrency. The travel company added that:
“Since 2015, we have used Bitcoin to receive payments from customers who want to travel and enjoy a boating experience in South Africa, but would otherwise have been prevented from doing so. Thanks to Bitcoin, we were able to operate, make a living, and our customers could travel, despite what their often dubious elected officials did.
Lukhangele Brabo, a 17-year-old South African who is a Bitcoin supporter and advocate, explained to Cointelegraph why Freedom Day is so important to him. Brabo said that “Freedom Day means having the greatest power and right to act.” Brabo used to work at Surfer Kids in Diaz Beach, South Africa, where she used to receive a salary through fiat money.. Unfortunately for him, his family used to take all of his money when he was young, leaving him without an alternative source of income. However, things started looking up for him after he discovered Bitcoin from Bitcoin Ekasi.a well-known Bitcoin supporter from South Africa:
“Now what happened is I stopped getting paid in fiat currency and started getting my weekly wages in Bitcoin, which became very interesting because I realized that okay, Bitcoin is safer than fiat currency because no one he can take it away from me. It’s on my phone and it’s safer. No matter what they did to try to take it all, it couldn’t work, why? Because they don’t know how it works or how to use it.”
Nearly 20% of South Africans, according to Borgen magazine, survive on less than $1.90 a day. Both inequality and poverty in South Africa are exacerbated by widespread corruption. Former President Jacob Zuma oversaw rampant corruption from 2009 to 2018. Zuma is estimated to have cost South Africa at least $35 billion and perhaps more than three million people fell below the poverty line during his tenure.
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