Four exchanges, one coalition, and a name that said everything: in September, VALR, Luno, AltCoinTrader, and EasyEquities banded together under the banner "Catastrophe" to fight proposed South African rules they believed would quietly kill crypto's role in cross-border payments. GoTyme Bank, part of the Tyme Group valued at $1.5 billion in 2024, joined the coalition shortly after. Their core argument was straightforward: regulation should govern the risk of a transaction, not the technology used to move the money.
The draft rules that triggered the pushback would have required anyone moving crypto offshore to go through authorised service providers, stay within existing foreign exchange limits, and have every transaction reported to the South African Reserve Bank. Companies would have been blocked from moving crypto offshore entirely. Critics said this treated crypto payments far more harshly than equivalent transfers made through the traditional banking system, including the use of stablecoins for payments that would otherwise be perfectly legal.
The industry sent thousands of comments, and it appears they landed. On Wednesday, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana confirmed that National Treasury received that volume of feedback and is now changing direction. Instead of requiring pre-approvals before funds move, the government wants to focus on whether transactions are legitimate and tax-compliant. A revised draft will go out for another round of public input before anything is finalised.
For context, South Africa already has strict limits on how much money can leave the country. Individuals can move up to R2 million (about $122,280) per year under a discretionary allowance, with another R10 million available if tax clearance is obtained. Anything beyond that requires additional approvals. The crypto rules, as originally written, would have layered new restrictions on top of a system that is already tightly controlled.
The revised draft is not published yet, which means the real fight is still ahead.
Originally published by TechCabal.