South African white enclave tests e-currency to stand apart
ORANIA, South Africa — The white Afrikaner community that famously sprang up in a sparsely populated corner of South Africa at the end of apartheid is now testing a digital currency that could reinforce its sense of independence.
Some residents of the town of Orania, population 1,600, are trying out the digital version of their own self-declared Ora currency. While pegged to the South African rand, the currency is a symbol of cultural preservation for the all-white community that says it feels under siege in the new South Africa after the 1994 end of white minority rule — while many in the country view it with wariness as a non-inclusive enclave that refuses to break with the past.
“I’m very proud that Orania is at the forefront of development with the E-Ora,” said Monja Strydom, one resident who now pays for her shopping using her mobile phone. “Although we are still learning; this has been a beta test phase.”
While the E-Ora is not a crypto-currency like Bitcoin, it gives Orania residents a potential escape from South Africa’s rand if that currency comes “under great pressure or hyper-inflation,” said the president of the Orania Movement, Carel Boshoff.