The South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg ruled that Bitcoin (BTC) is both capital and money under South Africa’s 1961 exchange control regulations. Judge Stuart Wilson dismissed an application by two crypto traders and upheld the South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB) forfeiture of nearly R6 million in assets against a trader who moved nearly 1,680 Bitcoin worth around R182 million.
On June 1, 2026, the Gauteng High Court dismissed an application by cryptocurrency traders Square Mangundhla, the main applicant and co-applicant Fungai Dangaiso, to overturn SARB’s forfeiture order.
Between January 2018 and March 2020, Mangundhla used his own Luno account and Dangaiso’s account to transfer nearly 1,680 BTC, worth around R182 million, to wallets accessible only through cryptocurrency exchanges registered outside South Africa.
The SARB’s Deputy Governor declared the transfers an unauthorised export of capital and ordered the forfeiture of nearly R6 million in BTC assets and funds held in the applicants’ bank and cryptocurrency accounts.
Judge Stuart Wilson ruled that the transfers amounted to the export of capital from South Africa without the necessary Treasury approval, violating the Exchange Control Regulations. The judge said, “The central question in this case is whether cryptocurrency (in this instance Bitcoin) constitutes either ‘money’ or ‘capital’ for the purposes of section 10(1)(c) of the Exchange Control Regulations, 1961. I conclude that it is both.”
BTC qualifies as capital because it functions as a store of value and medium of exchange. BTC is bought with rand, held as an investment, sold for profit, and even accepted by some merchants as payment, and transferring BTC to foreign-controlled wallets places it beyond SARB’s jurisdiction, which counts as exporting capital.
The court explicitly rejected the argument that BTC’s digital/decentralised nature excludes it from the old 1961 rules. Judge Wilson warned that the opposite view would render South Africa’s entire exchange-control system “virtually worthless.”
Notably, the national treasury has published the draft Capital Flow Management Regulations of 2026 for public comment, a move that has been particularly welcomed by the burgeoning cryptocurrency sector. At the same time, in the 2026 Budget Speech, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana announced that amendments to the Exchange Control Regulations will be published for public comment.
As a result, the amendments could signal South Africa’s shift toward a “positive bias” approach to cross-border capital flows, with fewer pre-approvals, stronger reporting, tighter monitoring of high-risk transactions, and efforts to combat illicit financial flows.
