South Africans continue to demonstrate an appetite for cryptocurrency, with more than 530 000 new customers signing up to Luno in the past 12 months.
This brings the platform’s South African user base to over 6,3-million, out of 15-million customers worldwide.
Luno’s recently launched tokenised stocks (xStocks), digital representations of actual stocks held in custody and recorded on a blockchain, have seen early success, according to Christo de Wit, Luno’s South Africa country manager.
He says 19 000 South African customers have so far invested in xStocks. “Nvidia (NVDAx) is the clear favourite, with over 3 000 customers currently holding the stock. Meta (METAx), the S&P 500 ETF (SPYx), and Apple (AAPLx) are also popular.”
While investment remains the primary use case, Luno Pay has seen traction. Since its launch in November 2024, over 50,000 completed payments have been processed across more than 1 700 merchants, representing a transaction volume of over R30-million.
South Africans can pay with cryptocurrency at nearly 700 000 merchants across the country using Luno Pay, which is available at all Scan to Pay–enabled merchants.
Bitcoin is still the most popular cryptocurrency in South Africa, with more than 200 000 customers investing in it over the past year. The altcoin market is also seeing momentum. Based on dollar volume, XRP is now in second spot, followed by Ethereum in third place. Solana has secured fourth place in both categories.
The meme coin phenomenon has grown, with Dogecoin rounding out the top five most popular cryptocurrencies on Luno. Tether (USDT), a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar, completes the top five by volume, as South Africans use it as a haven during market volatility.
While men still dominate the market at 64%, women are now 36% of buyers, a notable increase suggesting that cryptocurrency is becoming more mainstream across gender lines.
The age breakdown shows crypto’s appeal is strongest among working-age South Africans. The 25-34 age group makes up 37% of users, followed by 35-44 year-olds at 26%. Younger adults aged 18-24 represent 15% of the market, while those aged 45-54 account for 13%. Six percent of users are aged 55-64, and 3% are over 65.