“Every yield structure on bitcoin trades one of three things: control of the asset, exposure to the upside or counterparty solvency. A holder who understands which trade they are making, and at what price, can earn yield rationally. A holder who does not will discover the cost in the next cycle.”

Warren Wheatley, founder and former CEO of Africa Bitcoin Corporation

Dear reader 

There’s so much drama at the Africa Bitcoin Corporation (ABC). The TL/DR goes like this: the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) has issued confidential debarment orders against CEO Warren Wheatley, CIO Akshay Karan and media head Tatum Wheatley (aka Miss South Africa 2008 and the founding CEO’s wife).

A debarment is like a restraint of trade/operation and restricts them from providing financial services or acting as key persons of financial institutions, forcing the board to place Wheatley and Karan on precautionary leave and appoint Stafford Masie as interim CEO.

The company asserts that none of the entities has been affected, just the people.

While the individuals are appealing these decisions to the Financial Services Tribunal, the likely reason for their debarment is probably some of the structural contradictions in ABC’s business model, which I brought up with the company representatives at the Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town conference earlier this year.

ABC bills itself as “Africa’s only listed bitcoin treasury company”, but the real issue lies in the marketing versus the reality.

Their latest official Treasury Dashboard reveals that ABC holds 5.5331BTC. In today’s money that is a far cry from their R512.4-million in assets under management. So where is the rest? It is tied up in traditional private credit, deploying R363.8-million in debt to 45 local SMEs and holding R80.6-million in cash.

The bitcoin holding is a tiny 1.37% of total assets. Worse, R23.3-million of their loan book is in arrears (as of the May 2026 reporting, forcing a R12.79-million provision for bad debts.

Because ABC operates Altvest Wealth as an authorised financial services provider and acts as a juristic representative of CAEP Asset Managers, these credit operations are heavily regulated under South African law.

Violating financial services protocols while running an active SME credit fund disguised as a bitcoin treasury is the likely trigger for the FSCA’s hammer. But that’s just my read on it from publicly available knowledge.

To contextualise this, look at Michael Saylor’s Strategy in the US. They recently restarted their global accumulation engine, purchasing 4,603BTC, bringing their pure-play treasury to 845,050BTC. Strategy raises billions of dollars in stock and debt specifically to buy raw Bitcoin.

In contrast, ABC is looking more and more like a local private credit fund with a symbolic side-hustle in bitcoin. If you buy ABC expecting an African MicroStrategy, you are buying SME credit risk, not digital gold.

As a side-note, Masie’s bitcoin mining side-hustle, BitMach, got a shoutout in Eskom CEO Dan Marokane’s future plans which he outlined during the power utility’s annual results presentation this week. So yes, Eskom is getting into the bitcoin mining business.

Food for thought – now let’s get that dip.

Lindsey Schutters

SMART CITIES. BOLD IDEAS. ONE GATHERING. See you at The Gathering, 11 September 2026, Cape Town - CTICC.

🇦🇪📈 Standard Chartered has officially launched spot bitcoin and ether trading for institutional clients in the UAE through its Dubai-regulated entity. This makes them the first Global Systemically Important Bank (G-SIB) to offer direct spot trading in the region, building on the digital asset custody services they launched there back in September 2024.

🚨💀 If you’ve been tempted by a free download for an Anthropic AI desktop app, beware! Cybersecurity researchers discovered a fake program called “Claude Opus 5 Free Desktop” distributing a dangerous Windows malware strain dubbed RevStealer. Once inside, the malware sweeps browser databases, remote access settings, and selectively targets more than 50 cryptocurrency wallets.

🇦🇺⚖️ The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has warned unlicensed crypto firms that temporary enforcement relief ends on 30 September 2026. Businesses that fail to apply for an Australian Financial Services licence by the deadline face civil and criminal penalties, including fines reaching a massive 10% of their annual turnover.

💻❌ The hacker behind the third-wave Coldcard hardware wallet exploit (which compromised 8,865 addresses and drained at least 1,789BTC) has started moving funds. Onchain analysts traced about 10% of the stolen assets being swapped for Ether through THORChain, though the hacker keeps getting refunded and retrying due to routing issues.

🇸🇬🔄 The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is weighing a major policy pivot. After strictly mandating in 2023 that MAS-regulated stablecoins must be issued domestically, the central bank has opened a public consultation to allow jointly issued cross-border stablecoins and recognise foreign-issued stablecoins regulated under comparable international frameworks.

🇯🇵💴 Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) has submitted a formal tax-reform request for fiscal year 2027. The regulator wants to exempt trust-type stablecoins from mandatory beneficiary tax filings. The FSA’s logic is simple: stablecoins are high-velocity transaction tools, not investment assets, and users do not earn income just by holding them.

🇹🇭⚖️ Two Thai businessmen have sued stablecoin issuer Tether in a New York court, claiming Tether illegally froze $42.4-million in USDT back in October 2025. The freeze was done following an informal request from US Homeland Security regarding a $61-million “pig butchering” investment scam, but the actual court warrant was only issued months later in February 2026. The lawsuit argues that Tether lacked the authority to freeze assets without a formal warrant at the time.

As at: 3 September, 1pm 
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If cryptocurrency is just the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ (read: an invisible asset with no physical substance) what exactly is being locked up in all those high-security, off-grid crypto bunkers being built around the world?

It’s the ultimate irony of the crypto world: people are spending millions on heavily armed physical fortresses to protect invisible money.

Sceptics love comparing crypto to the Emperor’s New Clothes because you can’t hold a bitcoin in your hand. But while the asset itself lives entirely on the blockchain (a digital ledger), the access to that asset is very real.

What those ultra-secure storage facilities (like converted Swiss military bunkers or underground vaults) are actually housing are private keys.

Think of a private key as a master password or a cryptographic PIN code. If someone gets hold of it, your crypto is gone forever.

Because digital devices connected to the internet can be hacked, major investors and exchanges use cold storage. They take these private keys completely offline, printing them on paper, engraving them on metal plates, or storing them on specialised hard drives, and then locking them in physical vaults.

But Tether, of Swiss vault fame, is now using those Cold War bunkers to stash the physical gold reserves backing its XAUT. So time and technology are actually moving backwards?

Do you have a crypto-related question you want answered simply?
Let me know here.

Think of a bitcoin treasury company as a public company listed on the stock market (like the JSE AltX) that decides to act like a giant digital piggy bank.

Normally, when a company has extra cash, they keep it in traditional currencies (like rands or US dollars) in a bank account. But cash in the bank constantly loses its buying power due to inflation (which makes everything from bread to petrol more expensive).

A bitcoin treasury company decides to put its cash reserves into bitcoin instead, believing that bitcoin’s limited supply will protect their wealth over the long run.

Bottom line: If you are an everyday investor, buying bitcoin directly on an exchange can sometimes feel complicated, have tricky tax rules, or be blocked by your retirement fund regulations. But since these treasury companies are listed on public stock exchanges, you can simply buy their stock through your normal stockbroker. You get indirect exposure to bitcoin’s price movements wrapped inside a familiar, regulated stock.

Join the community actively shaping their financial future. Daily Maverick Connect is the place to debate the utility of new tokens, share mining insights, and learn from other forward-thinking crypto investors.

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