What do Eskom, Rob Herzov and bitcoin have in common? A solution to declining utility revenue, grid stabilisation, and the backbone or a bitcoin treasury reserve. The world keeps turning upside down.
“What people don’t know about Rob [Herzov] is what he does in the back to actually deliver and fix a lot of what’s broken in the country,” African Bitcoin Corporation executive chairman Stafford Masie told Daily Maverick, talking about Rob Herzov’s involvement in a forthcoming deal with Eskom and his new bitcoin mining company Bitmach. “He [Herzov] won’t come out and talk about a lot of the things that he does. But it’s extraordinary to see his efforts silently in the back working with me on these big projects because he’s been amazing.” It’s the second keynote on day one of theAdopting Bitcoin Conferenceat the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, and Masie made these revelations while talking about Bitmach, which he founded with Herzov and Silver Sixpence CEO Carel de Jager.
They’re about to fix a lot of the things that are broken in the power utility business model, and possibly change South Africa. De Jager is quickly becoming this journalist’s crypto hero. Hefirst publicly floated the (at the time) crazy idea of Eskom generating revenue from bitcoin miningall the way back in 2018, and the idea has been bubbling under the surface of the South African energy landscape ever since.
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He isn’t far off with his estimate. Large smelters operate under special, long-term contracts (NPAs) with Eskom, not standard load shedding schedules. These agreements allow Eskom to switch off power for limited periods (up to two hours at a time, up to 104 hours a year, for some users) to manage grid demand, but these are managed via predefined, negotiated schedules.
As of 29 January 2026,Nersa approved an interim agreement with the ferrochrome industryfocused on allowing smelters to operate at 40% capacity rather than shutting down entirely. The goal is to avoid the high costs and damage associated with immediate, emergency shutdowns of furnaces. To be clear: Eskom has not yet announced the deal.
But deploying this solution shifts the local conversation from bitcoin as currency to bitcoin as industrial infrastructure. What the utility would gain, if it all plays out as Masie says, is a programmable load that solves transmission congestion and monetises wasted generation. This ecosystem will then be financially captured by ABC, which allows institutional capital to invest in this grid-stabilising arbitrage via the JSE. It would also be another feather in Dan Marokane’s CEO hat after drawing much praise for dragging Eskom back to profitability in 2025.
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