Crypto Corner: Explainer: What is Africa Bitcoin Corporation and why did it make the FSCA mad?

It’s been a wild time in the house that Warren Wheatley built with the Karan brothers, but it actually has very little to do with bitcoin and it takes reading only 251 documents to see why.

Africa Bitcoin Corporation Limited (ABC), the business formerly known as Altvest Capital Limited, has a complex corporate history of frequent strategic shifts, multiple exchange transfers, governance turbulence, complex internal accounting structures, and, more recently, severe regulatory enforcement.

It was originally established in 2021/2022 with a lofty stated goal of “democratising access to alternative private equity assets for retail investors via specialised preference share classes”.

Then the group pivoted in 2025 into what it called “Africa’s first listed bitcoin treasury company”.

But while the company rebranded and began to accumulate bitcoin reserves, its core financial engine remains tied to small-to-medium enterprise (SME) private credit loan book through its subsidiary, the Altvest Credit Opportunities Fund (ACOF).

Glad you asked. This strategy play was made famous when Michael Saylor and his software company MicroStrategy started buying BTC in August 2020 because the then CEO believed it to be a superior store of value than cash. When the market turned bearish in 2022, Saylor took it as a market signal to buy the dip and maximise future gains. He eventually stepped down as CEO and serves as executive chairman, the company dropped the Micro from its name and is now only known as Strategy – and it has continued accumulating a massive holding of what is now 848,517 BTC . By contrast, according to the company’s financial disclosures and Sens announcements, ABC holds 5.5331 BTC in total as of May 2026. It’s first bitcoin purchase happened in February 2025 when the price was $96,195 – about $14,000 more than the current bitcoin price. ABC uses its bitcoin as security (like putting up a house as collateral for a bank mortgage) to borrow money overseas at under 4% interest. They can then turn around and lend that cheaper money to small businesses in Mzansi at normal market rates, making much bigger profit margins. As the company buys more bitcoin over time, each share of ABC stock is backed by a slightly larger fraction of bitcoin. When bitcoin’s price dropped in late 2025 and early 2026, accounting rules required ABC to lower the listed value of the bitcoin on its official balance sheet; which then showed a paper loss of about R2.4-million on the R7.8-million they spent acquiring it. But because the ABC policy is to HODL (hold on for dear life) its coins and did not sell them during the price dip, no actual money was lost. So until the debt covenants come due, everything is still fine and dandy and hopefully the price recovers.

But that’s not why Warren Wheatley was called to the FSCA naughty step alongside his wife, former Miss South Africa Tatum Keshwar-Wheatley, and former chief investment officer Akshay Karan (brother of Banker X founder and former Altvest CEO, Koshiek Karan).