THE Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) warns the public to be cautious when conducting financial services business with FX Trade Bitcoin.
It said this week that while it was uncertain what business the company was conducting, FX Trade Bitcoin was not authorised to give any financial advice or render any intermediary services in terms of the financial act.
The FSCA said it had received information that FX Trade Bitcoin was soliciting investments from the public and had received complaints from investors who seemed to be unable to recover their funds from the firm.
“The warning is made against the background of an ever-increasing number of fraudulent activities in the crypto asset and on-line trading environment. It is also of concern that the website of FX Trade Bitcoin has no contact details,” it said.
For example, South Africa’s Mirror Trading International was crowned as the world’s largest cryptocurrency Ponzi scam. A total of around $589 million (about R8.6 billion) was lost, affecting hundreds and thousands of investors, according to Chainanalysis’ 2020 Crypto Crime Report.
In most circumstances, regulators are issuing these warnings due to a lack of existing, formal regulations – as is the case in South Africa, where cryptocurrencies remain unregulated. This lack of regulation therefore requires investors to do their own extensive research before investing in cryptocurrencies, but also offers opportunity for fraudsters to prey on uninformed investors.
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