South African online marketplace Bidorbuy has added bitcoin as a payment option.
With the announcement, Bidorbuy now allows sellers to enable bitcoin as a payment method for buyers, using processing services provided by Singapore-based bitcoin service BitX.
Founded in 1999, Bidorbuy is one of the largest South African e-commerce websites, using an eBay-style model to attract some 1.1 million unique monthly viewers and facilitate 80,000 sales monthly.
In statements, Bidorbuy CEO Jaco Jonker emphasized that the decision was a way to offer more diverse payment choices to the site’s customers.
Jonker said:
“We believe it is important to provide our buyers and sellers with a choice of payment methods. Bitcoins are convenient and easy to use and although relatively new, the virtual currency has a lot of growth potential.”
South Africa has seen growth in bitcoin use for e-commerce in the past, with payment gateway PayFast partnering with BitX in 2014.
Marcus Swanepoel, CEO of BitX, remarked that he believed the offering will help advance the digital currency in Africa through its use in e-commerce.
“This integration is also a big milestone in terms of opening up the wider Bitcoin ecosystem in Africa, and should have a strong positive effect on the broader industry,” he said.
Disclosure: CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which has an investment stake in BitX.
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