Buying Bitcoin in South Africa
South Africans are loving crypto currency enough to close their bank accounts and avoid the failing rand more than ever before. Whether you’re leaving Absa, Capitec, FNB, Nedbank or Standard Bank in South Africa, there are many great options to buy bitcoin with rand before another bank collapses in the country.
While the government and bankers argue about who’s to blame for the VBS bank failure, South Africans can buy bitcoin with their rand and avoid taking chances with Nedbank, Capitec, FNB, Absa or Standard Bank doing the same in the future. There is a reason bitcoin is valuable around the world and the rand is not. It starts with decentralization and ends with storing value, two things the rand can’t do.
Best Bitcoin Exchanges in South Africa
While the news in South Africa wants to spread FUD about cryptocurrencies, lumping bitcoin into alt-coins, or seeing them as being similar is rather short sighted.
There will be lots of scammers and ponzi schemes popping up the longer bitcoin proves it is a good store of value, so a bitcoin wallet and trusted exchange method for bitcoin are essential for buyers and sellers in the country. The person to person transfers in South Africa, all offering different banking methods for payment in rand from FNB, Nedbank or Capitec have all been helping buy and sell bitcoin for years in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria. We don’t add any new exchanges until they have a proven track record helping people buy and sell bitcoin around the world.
Currently the best bitcoin exchanges in South Africa are:
| South Africa Exchanges | Type | KYC | Currencies | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Ice3x | Exchange / Trading Platform | Yes | ZAR | Continue |
 | LakeBTC | Exchange / Trading Platform | Yes | All National Currencies, BTC, ETH, LTC | Continue |
 | LocalBitcoins | Peer to Peer Bitcoin Buying and Selling | Yes | VND, ZAR, USD, EUR, BTC, LTC, ETH | Continue |
 | Remitano | Peer to Peer | Yes | ZAR, VND, IDR, USD, EUR, GBP | Continue |
 | CEX.IO | Exchange / Trading Platform | Yes | USD, EUR, GBP, VND, BTC, ETH, LTC + more | Continue |
 | BitMEX | Trading Platform | No | BTC | Continue |
Buying Bitcoin Anonymously in South Africa
With so many people leaving banks in South Africa, the person to person exchanges in the country are quite common for buying bitcoin. Having anonymity in a country like South Africa and transacting with rands for bitcoin can be difficult, so the goal is to start with small amounts and look at a sellers trading history though before buying bitcoin anonymously on exchanges.
Hodlhodl has a lot of sellers of bitcoin, similar to localbitcoins without the KYC documents, the exchange only acts as an intermediary for purchases. Paxful is another exchange, allowing gift cards to be used for buying bitcoin rather than meeting person to person. Then there is the decentralized exchange bisq, which requires downloading software to use but is the first truly decentralized anonymous bitcoin and crypto currency exchange.
Currently the best anonymous exchanges to buy bitcoin and cryptocurrency in South Africa are:
| Anonymous Exchange | South Africa | Type | KYC | Currencies | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | HodlHodl | Peer to Peer BTC Exchange / Trading Platform | No | EUR, USD | |
 | Paxful | Anonymous Bitcoin Purchases | No | Western Union, MoneyGram, Visa Prepaid Cards, Amazon Gift Cards | |
 | BISQ | Anonymous Person to Person Exchange / Trading Platform | No | AUD, CAD, EUR, GBP, INR, JPY, NZD, RUB, SEK, ZAR (More) | |
 | Binance | Trading Platform | No (under 2BTC) | BTC, ETH, LTC, Hundreds of Alt-coins | |
 | CoinMama | Exchange | Under $150 No | Visa, MasterCard, AUD, CAD, EUR, GBP, INR, JPY, NZD, RUB, SEK, ZAR |
Bitcoin ATM’s in South Africa
There are 6 Bitcoin ATMs in South Africa, all have fees disabled when we checked how bad they are in the country. This is probably the least used option in South Africa because bitcoin holders don’t talk about owning bitcoin in places like South Africa.
The Cape Town and Johannesburg bitcoin meetups will have a few people with other options for anonymous purchases of bitcoin in the country.