Stellenbosch start-up 6DOT50 brings crypto to retail

Loading player...
Stellenbosch-based start-up 6DOT50 is hoping to help consumers spend bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in retail stores and online in South Africa, making it easier to use crypto money for purchases.
In this episode of the podcast, 6DOT50 founder Warren Venter talks to TechCentral's Duncan McLeod about why it’s enabling support for cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ether in its payment platform and why it believes there’s demand for such as service in South Africa.
“Until now, cryptocurrencies have failed to fulfil the primary purpose of money, being its ability to be exchanged for goods and services,” said Venter. “6DOT50 has solved this problem by positioning its Digital Rands money vouchers as the bridge between the crypto world and fiat world, and providing an offramp for crypto value that offers merchants a common, stable and reliable measure of value to accept as payment.”
Venter explains in the podcast that 6DOT50 offers a free transactional account to all users and is now accepting bitcoin, litecoin, ether, bitcoin cash and dash as payment for its Digital Rands e-vouchers. The Digital Rands can be spent at 40 000 retail points of sale in South Africa.
“Our primary objective was to solve the general acceptability problems associated with crypto and to make it as acceptable as cash and bank card payments. By providing an instant conversion of crypto from the consumer into Digital Rands, merchants can accept payments from crypto enthusiasts without any of the risks that have prevented merchants from adopting crypto as payment before.”
Merchants that accept Digital Rands as payment include all Zapper QR code-enabled stores and online retailers as well as all Shoprite Group and Cape Union Mart Group stores and selected Famous Brands outlets.
In the podcast, Venter explains why 6DOT50 is investing in supporting cryptocurrencies and talks about how the process of converting cryptocurrencies into electronic vouchers works in practice.
Don't miss the discussion!
5 Aug 2021 English South Africa Technology · Business

Other recent episodes

TCS | Frogfoot sees bigger fibre deals coming

Frogfoot plans to keep buying smaller fibre network operators in South Africa’s suburbs as the market consolidates, but CEO Shane Chorley stopped short of ruling out a sale of the business. “I’d be ignorant to say that we would ignore any offer,” Chorley said on the latest episode of the…
8 Oct 40 min

Meet the CIO | Vodacom’s Mohamed Sami on the agentic future

Mohamed Sami, group chief information officer at Vodacom, says autonomous AI agents that resolve customer problems without handing them to a human are the next big shift in customer experience – and that it is closer than many think. Speaking on TechCentral’s Meet the CIO podcast series, brought to you…
5 Oct 44 min

TCS | Norrsken22’s Lexi Novitske on how China is winning African tech

Chinese companies have built their position in African technology one layer at a time – first phones and telecoms equipment, then fintech and now the AI models that local start-ups build on. American private capital, meanwhile, is pulling back. Lexi Novitske, general partner at Norrsken22, thinks US investors will regret…
1 Oct 28 min

TCS | Dominic White and Adam Ely on AI agents going rogue

AI agents are no longer a thought experiment for security teams. They are breaking out of test environments, hacking real companies and, according to one of our guests, already going rogue inside large businesses. In this episode of the TechCentral Show, TechCentral deputy editor Fanie van Rooyen talks to Dominic…
29 Sep 1 hr 26 min

TCS | Octotel’s Trevor van Zyl on the fibre merger question

Octotel CEO Trevor van Zyl joins the TechCentral Show to talk about where South Africa’s fibre market goes next – including a potential merger with MetroFibre Networx. Van Zyl told TechCentral that Octotel and MetroFibre Networx are assessing a combination that would create the country’s third-largest fibre network operator, with…
16 Sep 25 min