South Africa’s Garden Route, famed for its lush forests, expansive beaches and charming towns, has become a testbed for Bitcoin adoption.From Mossel B
South Africa’s Garden Route, famed for its lush forests, expansive beaches and charming towns, has become a testbed for Bitcoin adoption.
From Mossel Bay to Witsand and Plettenberg Bay to Knysna, Bitcoin has become popular among shop owners and travelers alike for a multitude of reasons.
“We’re seeing the early signs of a parallel, permissionless economy emerging across an entire region,” James Caw, founder of SimplB — a local crypto asset provider — told Cointelegraph, “where small businesses benefit from faster, lower-cost digital payments and where people have more options to earn, send and receive sound money securely.”
For tourists, the benefits are immediate: no currency exchange hassles, no international card fees, and the ability to pay instantly and securely. For locals, Bitcoin (BTC) offers a hedge against inflation, protection from currency volatility and new economic opportunities.
Here’s a taste of what a Bitcoin-friendly trip along the Garden Route is like.
The Garden Route is where Bitcoin meets paradise
The Garden Route is one of South Africa’s premier tourist corridors. It stretches roughly 300 kilometers from Mossel Bay in the west to the Storms River Mouth in the east, attracting hundreds of thousands of tourists yearly.
Crypto adoption is escalating thanks to South Africa’s regulatory environment, which now recognizes Bitcoin as a financial product. Across the Garden Route, you can spend pre-acquired Bitcoin freely, with little concern for local tax or exchange controls.
It’s a grassroots movement. Towns like Witsand and Plettenberg Bay are at the forefront, and national retailers like Pick n Pay provide a safety net for crypto spending along the way. Every Pick n Pay store, including supermarkets, clothing outlets and Express convenience stores, accepts Bitcoin via the CryptoQR app. This guarantees you can always buy daily goods with Bitcoin wherever you travel.
Related: Stablecoin fever: 5 major stablecoins are growing crypto adoption
Witsand is the Bitcoin village
Located at the mouth of the Breede River, Witsand is a sleepy coastal town with a big reputation in the Bitcoin world. Here, Bitcoin isn’t just accepted — it’s preferred.
It’s thanks to the efforts of local champions like Edwin Jones, a software engineer and passionate supporter of Bitcoin adoption in the Garden Route. Witsand has become a functioning Bitcoin circular economy. Accommodation options like Fantasea and Happy Days holiday homes, meals at Ellie’s on Main, groceries at local shops, gym memberships, boat services, petrol, surf lessons and mini-golf can be paid for using Bitcoin.
As Jones notes:
Bitcoin Witsand existed long before we gave it a name. It was just having conversations with friends, and as the local businesses started understanding Bitcoin, they actually demanded we start getting the technology in place.
The town’s small and close-knit community has enabled rapid adoption; more than 45 establishments accept Bitcoin as of early 2025. The town’s enthusiasm is infectious, as locals and visitors enjoy the ease and security of digital payments.
Witsand’s success as a Bitcoin hub is rooted in its community-driven approach. Jones outlines its growth by outlining that:
Although there have been many individual businesses over the years since 2009 that started and stopped accepting Bitcoin for the Garden Route, the adoption really started kicking off in 2021.
“With the Lightning Network starting to reach maturity around that time, the first Spaza Shop in Mossel Bay, Bitcoin Ekasi, started accepting Bitcoin in August 2021, and the first restaurant in Witsand in December of the same year.”
Education has been central to the process. Local advocates have focused on teaching business owners the fundamentals of Bitcoin, warning against scams and emphasizing the difference between Bitcoin and speculative altcoins.
“With all the circular economies advocating against gambling and trading, cautioning against interest and investments, being explicitly Bitcoin, and focusing on the fundamentals rather than the price, scammers have been kept at bay,” Jones said. “We have also found that businesses don’t have to adapt as much as evolve.”
Bitcoin doesn’t change a business — it just supercharges it. Doing the same old things, much better.
Mossel Bay’s surf and social upliftment
Mossel Bay, the historical gateway to the Garden Route, is not just about beaches and maritime history. Mossel Bay is home to Bitcoin Ekasi, a pioneering project that brought Bitcoin to the township of JCC Camp.
Bitcoin Ekasi empowers unbanked residents by enabling them to earn and spend Bitcoin locally. Coaches at The Surfer Kids nonprofit are paid in Bitcoin, and local spaza shops accept Bitcoin for daily necessities.
For the Bitcoiner tourist, Mossel Bay offers a unique opportunity for “conscious crypto-tourism.” You can take surf…
cointelegraph.com