• Luno has shared the insights from its latest report on who buys crypto in South Africa.
• Like last year’s report, young South African males are the most activate.
• Interestingly the average spend on a crypto purchase is up by R200.

Last year cryptocurrency exchange platform Luno detailed the findings of a local report that looked at who buys crypto in SA. The data was interesting, if a little unsurprising, with the user base skewing to a male audience, and South Africans spending more than the global average when it comes to making an initial deposit on the platform.

For 2023, Luno has released another report, and in the space of 12 months there has been some movement on a few of the metrics, but not a lot.

To that end, the majority of Luno users are still male, sitting at 64 percent. This makes sense given the marketing for Luno in South Africa has previously involved Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus, and in recent months captain Siya Kolisi.

Luno does, however, point out that the numbers for SA in terms of the male/female split are better than the global average, with 36 percent of local users being women compared to 19 percent in other markets.

Some of the other interesting sets of data coming out for the report include the fact that the average initial deposit is up from last year. This as R650 is put down by those in SA, compared to last year’s figure of R450, with both still higher than the global average of ~R400.

South Africans also seem keen to hold onto their investment regardless of how the crypto market fluctuates.

Here Luno says, “SA customers hold on to their crypto for about six months – slightly longer than the global average of 4.5 months.”

Diving into the areas of the country where people are buying crypto in SA, the report notes that, “there have been 388 million transactions on Luno. Users are spread across the country, with the highest concentration of customers in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria, Sandton and Durban but there are also customers in far-flung areas like Sulenkama, Hammanskraal and Lambert’s Bay.”

Luno’s SA country manager Christo de Wit, also highlights the fact that over the past 10 years, businesses have been increasing interested in this sector. Over R655 billion has been traded on the platform over the past decade, with more than 3 000 businesses having accounts in SA.

He also notes that the past decade has seen the value of Bitcoin in particular has proved profitable for those willing to HODL (Hold On For Dear Life).

“One of the first crypto transactions on Luno was a purchase of 0.1 Bitcoin worth R403 at that time. Today, the value would be over R56 000 at Bitcoin’s current trading price on Luno,” he explains.

While much of the fervour around crypto has died down in recent years, it is clearly a fixture that is here to stay for many South Africans.