FSCA debars CEO of JSE-listed bitcoin treasury company

The chief executive of Africa Bitcoin Corporation, the JSE-listed company formerly known as Altvest Capital, has been debarred by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority and has resigned from the board.

Warren Wheatley, who founded the company and drove its pivot into what it bills as Africa’s first listed bitcoin treasury company, is one of three people named in FSCA decisions communicated to the board on 30 August. The others are chief investment officer Akshay Karan and Tatum Wheatley, who heads the company’s media and investor relations.

According to a investor statement issued after markets closed on Tuesday, the decisions include debarment orders restricting the three from providing or being involved in the provision of financial products or financial services, from acting as key persons of financial institutions and from providing services to financial institutions.

The regulator has not published the decisions and the company has not said what conduct led to them. The investor statement, issued via the JSE, said the decisions were communicated confidentially to the individuals concerned.

All three dispute the findings and intend to apply to the Financial Services Tribunal for reconsideration and suspension of the orders. No suspension has been granted, so the debarments are in force.

Africa Bitcoin noted that the FSCA made no finding against any company in the group, and imposed no administrative penalty or debarment on any group entity. The orders apply to the three individuals alone.

Wheatley and Karan were placed on precautionary leave from their executive roles with effect from 31 August, initially for one month and subject to board review. During that period neither will exercise any authority on behalf of the company or represent it. Tatum Wheatley’s services, provided through her consulting business, have been suspended.

Stafford Masie, an executive director and the company’s director of bitcoin strategy, has taken over as interim CEO with immediate effect. He will oversee the group’s executive arrangements relating to Altvest Credit Opportunities Fund, the wholly owned SME lender whose economics underpin the company’s preferred C ordinary shares, without joining that company’s board.

Masie is one of the better-known figures in South African technology. He was Google’s first country manager in South Africa, founded payments start-up Thumbzup and has served on the boards of Discovery Bank and Advtech. He joined Altvest as lead independent director, became executive chairman in September 2025 when the bitcoin strategy was announced and later moved to the bitcoin strategy role.

Wheatley resigned as a director of Africa Bitcoin Corporation with effect from 31 August. He, Karan and Tatum Wheatley all resigned as directors of Altvest Credit Opportunities Fund on the same date.