TRC-20 · TRON
The most common network for USDT in this market. Cheap and fast, which is why most senders default to it — and why an address pasted from a TRON wallet into an Ethereum withdrawal screen is the single most frequent mistake we see.
USDT desk · both directions
Sell USDT, buy USDT,
Sell USDT, buy USDT,
settle where you bank.
USDT and USDC on TRC-20, ERC-20, BEP-20 or Solana, exchanged at a rate agreed before anything moves and settled to an account in your own name. The network is written down and confirmed by both sides first, because that is where money actually gets lost.
Conexus
Indicative USDT rate
—
USDT / ZAR
Quoted by a trader
Why a desk for stablecoins
Request a firm quote
A dollar balance, settled where you bank.
Most people who come to the USDT desk are not speculating. They are holding a dollar-denominated balance for a reason — a supplier paid them in USDT, they moved country with savings already on chain, a contract settles in USDC — and now they need money in a bank account, with a paper trail an accountant and a tax authority can follow.
Stablecoins suit an over-the-counter desk better than any other asset. Because the token does not swing in price while the trade is being arranged, the desk can quote a firm rate for the whole ticket and hold it for a sensible window instead of seconds. Size is a liquidity question rather than a price-risk question, which is why the largest tickets this desk handles are almost always USDT.
What the desk is pricing is not the dollar. It is the currency on the other side of the trade. In South Africa, where this desk has its office, USDT trades against ZAR on local order books at a level that reflects local demand for dollars, and that level is not the same as taking the offshore USDT price and multiplying it by the interbank USD/ZAR rate. Indicative pricing there comes from VALR and Luno order books, and a firm rate is quoted by a trader against real liquidity on the day. In any other market, the corridor and the rail are confirmed before a quote is given rather than assumed. See indicative rates for the live picture.
We buy stablecoins for fiat and sell them for fiat. That is the whole service. We do not custody balances for you, we do not pay anything on a balance left with us, and there is nothing to leave with us — a trade opens and closes the same business day.
Indicative quote
Live
You send
You receive
ZAR
Indicative only. This is not an offer or a binding quote. It excludes network fees, banking charges and the outcome of compliance checks. A firm rate is valid only once confirmed in writing by a trader. Crypto assets are volatile and investing in crypto assets may result in the loss of capital.
The one thing to get right
Network selection is how people lose funds.
Not hacking. Not scams, in most cases. The ordinary way a large stablecoin balance disappears is that someone picked the wrong network in a withdrawal screen and pressed send.
A transfer on the wrong network cannot be reversed
There is no chargeback, no clearing house and nobody to call. Once a transfer is confirmed on a blockchain it is final. Whether the funds can be recovered depends entirely on who controls the destination address, and in the worst case — an exchange deposit address that credits only one network — recovery may be slow, expensive or impossible. Confirm the network before you confirm the amount.
ERC-20 · Ethereum mainnet
Highest network fee of the four. An ERC-20 address and a BEP-20 address are indistinguishable by sight — both are 0x plus 40 characters — so the network cannot be inferred from the address. It has to be stated.
BEP-20 · BNB Smart Chain
Identical address format to ERC-20. A BEP-20 transfer sent to an exchange deposit address that only credits ERC-20 is the classic way a balance disappears from view even though it still exists on chain.
Solana · Solana (SPL)
Different enough in shape that most wallets refuse an obviously wrong paste. Not all of them do, and a token account that has never been initialised can still cause a failed or stuck transfer.
| Network | Chain | Tokens | Address format |
|---|---|---|---|
| TRC-20 | TRON | USDT | Starts with T, 34 characters, no 0x |
| ERC-20 | Ethereum mainnet | USDT, USDC | 0x followed by 40 hexadecimal characters |
| BEP-20 | BNB Smart Chain | USDT | 0x followed by 40 hexadecimal characters |
| Solana | Solana (SPL) | USDT, USDC | Base58, 32–44 characters, no 0x prefix |
Two traps worth naming
Identical addresses, different chains. An Ethereum address and a BNB Smart Chain address are both 0x followed by forty characters. Nothing in the string tells you which chain it belongs to. Wallets cannot warn you, because there is nothing to warn about — the address is valid on both. Only the sender and the receiver agreeing in advance prevents the error.
USDT on TRON is not USDT on Ethereum. They share a name and a price and nothing else. They are separate tokens on separate ledgers, and moving between them means either a bridge or an exchange, not a transfer. If your wallet shows USDT and you are not certain which chain it sits on, say so at the enquiry stage. A trader would far rather spend ten minutes establishing that than deal with the alternative.
Standard practice
The test transaction.
It costs a few dollars in network fees and a few minutes of waiting. It is the cheapest form of protection available on a transfer that cannot be undone.
Conexus
Indicative USDT rate
—
USDT / ZAR
Confirm the network first
01
Agree the details in writing
Asset, network, destination address, amount, rate and the account the money will land in. All of it in one message from your trader, before anything is sent.
02
Send a small amount first
The equivalent of a hundred dollars or so is enough. Send it from the wallet you will use for the full amount, on the network named in the confirmation.
03
Wait for confirmation on both sides
Your trader confirms receipt and reads back the transaction hash — minutes on TRC-20 or Solana. If anything about the confirmation does not match what you sent, stop there.
04
Send the balance
Same wallet, same network, same address, same session. The trader tells you in advance whether the firm rate covers both legs or whether the balance is re-quoted on receipt.
On a repeat trade with a client already on file, sending from the same wallet to the same address, the trader may agree to skip the test send. That is a decision you make together, not a default.
Written confirmation
The network goes in the deal note.
Every trade at this desk is confirmed in writing before it executes, and the confirmation names the network explicitly — not "USDT" but "USDT, TRC-20". This is partly a compliance habit and partly hard experience. A verbal instruction over a phone call, or a network chosen by assumption because "that is what everyone uses", is the exact circumstance in which a six-figure transfer goes to the wrong chain.
The confirmation you receive states, at minimum:
- the asset and the network, written out in full;
- the destination address in full, to be checked character by character against what your wallet displays;
- the amount, the firm rate and the net figure you will receive;
- the bank account the money will settle into, in your own name, and the currency it settles in;
- the window for which the firm rate is held.
Check the address against a second channel before you send. Impersonation of desk staff on messaging apps is the most common attack against clients in this market, and an address swapped in a chat window looks exactly like the real one at a glance. Our real channels are listed on the verify our channels page, and a trader will never object to being called back on the published number to read an address aloud.
A trader who is annoyed by you double-checking an address is not a trader worth sending money to.
Understand what you are holding
A stablecoin is not a bank deposit.
This matters more the longer you hold and the larger the balance. Four differences that are easy to overlook because the number on the screen looks like dollars.
No deposit insurance
A deposit at a registered bank is supervised as a deposit, and in South Africa qualifying deposits are covered by deposit insurance. A stablecoin balance in a wallet or at an exchange is neither. If the issuer or the venue fails, you are a creditor with a claim, not an insured depositor.
Issuer risk is real and specific
The token is a liability of a private issuer, backed by reserves that issuer discloses on terms it sets. Issuers also retain the technical ability to freeze balances at named addresses, and have used it at the request of law enforcement. That is not a rumour about the technology; it is written into how these tokens work.
The peg is a commitment, not a law
Stablecoins have traded below one dollar, sometimes for days. And even a perfectly maintained peg does not protect you from the dollar rate against the currency you actually spend, which is the exposure that determines what your balance is worth at home.
Not legal tender, not in the payment system
In South Africa, Joint Communication 1 of 2026, issued on 28 May 2026, confirms that a crypto asset is not money and not funds, and falls outside the National Payment System Act. Nobody is obliged to accept it, and it carries none of the protections that come with a regulated payment.
Tax does not care what you call it
SARS treats crypto assets as assets of an intangible nature, taxed on revenue or capital account under ordinary principles. South Africa adopted the OECD Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework from 1 March 2026, with the first return due to SARS by 31 May 2027. Other jurisdictions are adopting the same OECD framework on their own timetables. We keep the records the FIC Act requires and we give you a clean deal confirmation for each trade. We do not give tax advice — that belongs with a registered tax practitioner. See how we handle compliance.
Indicative pricing
USDT and USDC, live.
| Asset | Indicative rate, ZAR | Bid | Ask | Networks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
USD
Tether USDT |
— | — | — | TRC-20, ERC-20, BEP-20, Solana |
|
USD
USD Coin USDC |
— | — | — | ERC-20, Solana, Base |
Updated — · sources: —. Reference data: VALR, Luno.
Indicative only, and never a quote. A firm rate is given by a trader in writing, holds for an agreed window, and is the only number you should plan against. Margin depends on size and settlement rail — the ladder is published on the fees and limits page.
Stablecoin questions we actually get
The one the trader names in your written confirmation, and only that one. If you are choosing between them for cost, TRC-20 and Solana are cheap, ERC-20 is expensive, BEP-20 sits in between. Cost is the least important part of the decision — we would rather you pay a higher network fee on a chain you have used before than save a few rand on a chain you are using for the first time with a large balance.
It depends entirely on what is on the other end. If the destination is an address whose private key someone controls directly, funds sent on the wrong EVM chain — ERC-20 versus BEP-20, for instance — can usually be reached by importing that key on the other chain. If the destination is a deposit address at a custodian that only credits one network, recovery depends on that custodian's internal process, may take weeks, may carry a fee, and may not be possible at all. Tell your trader immediately rather than sending a second transfer.
Yes, and on a first trade we ask for one. Send a small amount, wait for it to confirm, and only send the balance once both sides can see it. The trader will tell you in advance whether the firm rate covers the test send and the balance together, or whether the balance is re-quoted after confirmation. Either way you will know before you send anything.
No. A bank deposit is a claim on a registered bank, supervised as a bank, with deposit insurance covering qualifying deposits. A stablecoin is a token issued by a private company against reserves it discloses on its own terms. It is not legal tender, it is not covered by deposit insurance, and its issuer has the technical ability to freeze balances at specific addresses. Treat it as an asset you hold, not as money you have.
It can and stablecoins have. The peg is a commitment by an issuer, not a law of nature, and tokens have traded below one dollar for extended periods during periods of stress. Separately, even a perfectly held peg leaves you exposed to the dollar-rand rate, which moves every day. Investing in crypto assets may result in the loss of capital.
Because we are an accountable institution under Item 22 of Schedule 1 to the FIC Act, and because stablecoin issuers freeze addresses connected to sanctioned or criminal activity. Screening protects you as much as us: a balance that arrives from a flagged address can be frozen after it reaches us, which turns a simple exchange into a months-long problem for both parties.
Stablecoin tickets are the largest the desk handles, because they do not carry the price risk that a Bitcoin or Ethereum ticket does. Size is quoted case by case against South African liquidity on the day. If the amount is unusual, say so at the enquiry stage and the trader will tell you honestly what is workable rather than accepting and then struggling. See large-volume trades.
Where to read next.
The core OTC desk
How a crypto asset to fiat trade runs from enquiry to settlement, for every asset we quote.
Large-volume trades
Why a big stablecoin ticket is priced whole rather than worked into a thin order book.
Business and treasury
For a company holding USDT: invoicing, the VAT position, reconciliation and audit documentation.
Tell us the amount and the network.
A trader confirms the network in writing, gives you a firm rate for the whole ticket, and settles to an account in your own name the same business day.
Investing in crypto assets may result in the loss of capital, as the value is variable and can go up as well as down. A crypto asset is not legal tender and does not fall within the National Payment System Act. A stablecoin balance is not a bank deposit and is not covered by deposit insurance. Conexus Crypto provides an exchange service only and does not provide financial, investment or tax advice.