German Regulator Ordered KaratGold Coin Creator To Stop Operations

The German regulator- the financial supervisory authority along with the South African regulators took actions over sales of a purportedly gold-backed cryptocurrency as we are reading further in the latest cryptocurrency news today.

The German regulator disclosed back on Monday that it had issued a cease-and-desist order against Karatbit Foundation for issuing the KaratGold coin without necessary licensing in the country. The South Africa Financial Sector Conduct Authority warned the consumers to avoid the investments that were offered by Karatbars International GmbH which is a German company that promotes the reportedly gold-backed KaratGold.

With the BaFin order, the foundation has to ‘wind up its electronic money business’ in Germany as per the regulator. BaFin didn’t quite respond to requests for comment by press time. Running on the Ethereum blockchain, the KaratGold Coin is officially listed on about 25 exchanges. The Belize-based Karatbit Foundation is the issuer of the coin and the manager of the entire ecosystem according to the KaratBank coin white paper which is why the entity is considered unregulated.

Karatbars International has denied all of the accusations that were leveled in the German business publication Handelsblatt according to the company posts and a story that was published on Wednesday by TheGuardian. The media outlet reported that the Karatbit Foundation is under orders to return the investors’ funds that reached up to $100 million which is equivalent to the amount that was raised in 2018.

Harald Seiz who is the CEO of Karatbars stated that the German regulator is mistaken the order against the firm basing the actions on a scam website that is not associated with the company. He claimed:

 “We are completely transparent, we have nothing to hide, if there are unanswered questions, we will clarify them, of course, we fully cooperate with the relevant authorities and are very anxious to clear up any misunderstandings as fast as possible interested.’’

The FSCA explained that Karatbar International solicited multiple South African investors via WhatsApp to purchase unspecified investments without holding the authority to operate in the country and the warnings from South Africa and Germany came later after it was reported that the Florida Office of Financial Regulation stated that Karatbars is not licensed as a bank.