Blockchain Engineer · Founder · Author

Building the intelligence layer for digital assets.

Founder & CEO of Sixpence. CTO of Bitmach. Former CSIR Research Group Leader. Eight years engineering compliance, forensics, and mining infrastructure for global institutions.

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Carel de Jager, blockchain engineer and CEO of Sixpence, portrait photograph

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01 — About

Engineer first.
Everything else followed.

Carel de Jager spent nine years as an Asset Care Engineer at Eskom's Lethabo Power Station — one of South Africa's largest coal-fired facilities — where he was responsible for plant availability, reliability, and the development of life-of-plant strategies.

That engineering discipline became the foundation for a career in blockchain technology. Since 2016, Carel has trained executives at banks, insurers, law firms, and regulators across Southern Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. He led the Distributed Ledger Technology research group at the CSIR from 2022 to 2025, building forensic compliance software for the public and private sectors.

Today, as CEO of Sixpence, he builds blockchain intelligence products used by auditors, regulators, and law enforcement worldwide. As CTO of Bitmach, he is deploying Africa's largest Bitcoin mining operation in partnership with Eskom — turning his original 2018 thesis into industrial reality.

He holds a B.Eng in Chemical Engineering and an M.Eng in Engineering Management (cum laude) from North-West University. He wrote the foreword of a Palgrave Macmillan publication on blockchain evidence and digital asset assurance.

Based in South Africa · Working globally

02 — Ventures

Two companies. One thesis.

Blockchain Intelligence

Sixpence

Founder & CEO · Since 2020

Sixpence builds blockchain analytics products for financial institutions, regulators, and law enforcement. Core products include LedgerWatch for investigations and compliance, LedgerTax for crypto tax reporting, Ledgernalysis for audit-grade analytics, and ReserveX for proof-of-reserves verification. Sixpence was awarded a Coinbase grant for proof-of-reserves R&D — selected from over 50 proposals — and co-authored open-source PoR software with Coinbase engineers.

Coinbase · Nedbank · Mazars · SARB · Binance

sixpence.io

Bitcoin Mining

Bitmach

Chief Technology Officer · Since 2025

Bitmach is deploying Africa's largest Bitcoin mining operation in partnership with Eskom, using demand-response mining to monetise surplus electricity and stabilise the national grid. Co-founded with Rob Hersov and Stafford Masie, Bitmach turns a thesis Carel first published in 2018 — that South Africa's state utility should mine Bitcoin with its excess capacity — from a Medium blog post into commercial-scale infrastructure.

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03 — Expertise

Where engineering meets regulation.

Blockchain Forensics

On-chain investigation, transaction tracing, wallet clustering, and illicit flow detection — including tracking groups like the North Korean Lazarus Group and exposing R5 billion in illegal South African capital outflows.

Crypto-Asset Auditing

Proof-of-Reserves verification, solvency audits, and accounting-grade analytics for exchanges and custodians. Involved in the Binance Proof-of-Reserves audit process.

Regulatory Compliance

AML and KYT tooling, exchange licensing support, and advisory for regulators including the South African Reserve Bank. Author of the Universal KYT API technical specification.

Bitcoin Mining Economics

Energy arbitrage, demand-response grid integration, and thermodynamic modelling of mining profitability at national scale. From the original 2018 Eskom thesis to Bitmach deployment.

Executive Training

100+ corporate workshops delivered to banks, insurers, law firms, and regulators across Southern Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. Audiences from beginner to C-suite.

Published Research

CSIR-led R&D on DLT compliance software. Several technical blog posts and thought leadership pieces. MEng dissertation on engineering workforce dynamics at Eskom.

04 — Speaking & Media