- Pick n Pay says its tests of the Bitcoin Lighting system have been going so well, it will be rolled out nationally soon.
- That means you’ll be able to pay for groceries at any PnP till with bitcoin, if you have the right software on your phone.
- 39 of its stores are already accepting bitcoin, after it expanded an initial trial.
- For more stories, go to www.BusinessInsider.co.za.
Pick n Pay says it now intends to accept bitcoin payments at all its tills in all its stores “in the coming months”, after the success of an initial pilot.
In an update on Tuesday, the store chain said it had expanded its testing to more stores, which means 39 are already accepting bitcoin transactions.
An initial pilot had seen 10 Western Cape stores take bitcoin over the past five months, after a years-long hiatus since Pick n Pay first dipped its toes into cryptocurrency waters. In 2017, PnP said, it tried out crypto payments at a canteen store at its head office. That served as a proof of concept, “but the available technology at the time was too expensive for shoppers and it took too long to finalise the transaction to make it sustainable.”
Now, it says, transactions take a matter of seconds, after setting up one of a range of available software solutions on a smartphone.
Payments use the Bitcoin Lightning system, which is layered on top of the Bitcoin ecosystem that is notoriously slow and expensive for day-to-day transactions. Using Bitcoin Lightning though, Pick n Pay says, takes less than 30 seconds, and is pretty much as easy as swiping a debit card.
The average cost of a transaction is 70 cents, Pick n Pay says.
In order to pay with bitcoin, you’ll need an app that supports Bitcoin Lightning. That can be a non-custodial wallet, such as Zap or Muun, or a custodial wallet, such as Strike or Wallet of Satoshi.
The app, once set up and loaded with bitcoin, can be connected to the CryptoQR scanner app, which in turn can scan a QR code at the point of payment. Then you have to accept the conversation rate from bitcoin to rand that is offered on your smartphone, and you are done.
Pick n Pay was the first major retailer in Africa to test Lightning Network, says its partner CryptoConvert, which provides some of the underlying plumbing for the system.
Here is Pick n Pay’s list of stores, including Pick n Pay Hypers and PnP Qualisaves, where you can already pay with bitcoin.
- Langeberg Mall, Mosselbay
- Sedgefield
- Stellenbosch Central and Stellenbosch Square
- Paarl Mall
- Willowbridge
- Local Big Bay
- Table Bay Mall
- Cavendish
- Kenilworth
- Kenilworth Campus
- Kenilworth Pam Golding
- Seapoint
- Waterfront
- Mall of Africa
- Mall of the North
- Mall of the South
- Menlyn Mall
- Nelspruit
- PnP on Nicol
- Liberty Midlands Mall
- The Pavilion
- Tshwane Mall
- Beacon Bay
- Uitenhage
- Bedfordview
- Centurion
- Fourways Mall
- PnP Qualisave Carlton Centre
- PnP Qualisave Diepsloot
- PnP Qualisave Midrand
- PnP Qualisave Rustenburg
- PnP Qualisave Commercial Road
- PnP Qualisave North Beach
- PnP Qualisave The Workshop
- PnP Qualisave Goodwood
- Hyper Bloemfontein
- Hyper Durban North
- Hyper Northgate
- Hyper Ottery
