Share this article
South African Regulator Seeks More Crypto Powers After Alleged Ponzi Schemer's Collapse
“At the point something becomes a Ponzi scheme, we have lost our jurisdiction,” a regulator told Bloomberg.
Updated Sep 14, 2021, 11:02 a.m. Published Jan 27, 2021, 2:06 p.m.
South Africa’s financial market regulator is seeking greater oversight of the cryptocurrency trading industry following the collapse of a bitcoin company alleged to have been the nation's biggest Ponzi scheme.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
- Brandon Topham, head of enforcement at the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), told Bloomberg Tuesday his agency is making new proposals to regulate cryptocurrencies in order to be able to prosecute fraudsters.
- “At the point something becomes a Ponzi scheme, we have lost our jurisdiction,” Topham told Bloomberg. “We need the police and the prosecuting authority to work fast and put people in jail.”
- The move comes after a recent FSCA investigation into Mirror Trading International (MTI), a bitcoin trading club that had allegedly been operating illegally and lied to investors.
- As reported by CoinDesk, MTI had claimed to be able to create profits of 10% per month by using bots to carry out high-frequency trading using client’s pooled bitcoin.
- The firm was declared fraudulent by Texas state regulators in July last year, and the FSCA probe concluded MTI deliberately misled investors and operated a financial service without a license.
Read more: Crypto Assets in South Africa Would Be Considered Financial Products Under Regulator Proposal
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
U.S. Senate's Warren asks for Trump-tied crypto probe as market structure bill drags
The influential Democrat is the most vocal critic of the crypto legislation, and she continues to throw rhetorical sand in the gears of the negotiation.
What to know:
- U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, is calling for a probe into DeFi platforms, especially on their relationship with the business interests of President Donald Trump.
- Warren's pushback comes as the Senate is still negotiating the details of a crypto market structure bill, a process that's now drifted into January.
Top Stories
