Bitcoin's popularity in South Africa is growing along with political and economic uncertainty

South Africa's new President Cyril Ramaphosa intends to amend the constitution to implement land reform, which involves confiscating land from white farmers and transferring it to black farmers who do not own land.

Such intentions have particularly worried Goldman Sachs and the rating agency Moody's, which provides international financial research on bond issues by commercial and government organizations. However, the president assured the agency that such a move would not affect the South African economy.

Other economic issues are also causing concern, including high unemployment (more than 25%), the introduction of a temporary administration at the national bank VBS Mutual Bank, and the world's highest rate of economic crime (77%), according to PwC.

“The best thing you can do during a financial crisis is to diversify your portfolio. "The addition of crypto assets could provide opportunities that the rest of the market doesn't have," says Mati Greenspan, an analyst at eToro, a social trading marketplace.

It's no surprise that South Africa recently rose to number one in Google searches for bitcoin. In addition, over the past year, the number of new users selling bitcoin on eToro has grown by 671%. After the banking crisis in Cyprus in 2012-13, the number of BTC users also increased, which influenced the rise in its price. 

This trend is also observed on the international trading platform LocalBitcoins. Statistics show that bitcoin sales in South Africa have increased significantly over the past year, amounting to more than 20 million South African rand (1.7 million US dollars).

According to http://bitcoinist.com