Unpacking the FTX disaster, with OVEX’s Jon Ovadia

--:--
The collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX has sent shockwaves through the crypto community worldwide.
In this episode of TC|Daily, Jon Ovadia, CEO of South Africa crypto exchange OVEX, joins TechCentral’s Duncan McLeod from Dubai to talk about FTX’s bankruptcy and what it means for South African crypto players and for the ecosystem more broadly.
FTX, which is a shareholder in OVEX, was forced to file for bankruptcy protection after founder Sam Bankman-Fried was unable to secure emergency funding to keep the business afloat after customers took fright and began withdrawing billions of dollars from the exchange.
John Ray III, an insolvency expert who oversaw Enron’s liquidation, has been appointed to oversee the FTX bankruptcy. He has described its collapse as the worst case of corporate failure in the more than 40 years he’s been in the insolvency business, and has compared it to the failure of Enron, the Financial Times reported.
In this episode of TC|Daily, Ovadia unpacks:
• The impact of the FTX collapse on OVEX clients, if any.
• OVEX’s decision to revoke FTX’s authority to market its offshore crypto derivatives products in South Africa and what that means.
• What went wrong at FTX, why it caught the crypto industry by surprise, and whether fraud or other criminality was likely involved.
• The damage to crypto as an investment class as a result – will this incident scare away investors from the crypto space for good?
• Whether investors should leave their money in crypto exchanges – is it safe?
• Whether better regulation would have prevented the FTX disaster – and are South African regulators doing enough to regulate the crypto space?
Ovadia also provides an update on OVEX and its international expansion plans.
Don’t miss the discussion!
18 Nov 2022 3AM English South Africa Technology · Business

Other recent episodes

From Namibian start-up to regional powerhouse: the rapid rise of Paratus

Paratus Group is rapidly emerging as a major player in the telecommunications industry in Southern Africa. But who’s behind Paratus, and what’s its history? From landing Google’s Equiano subsea cable in Swakopmund and building a new fibre route between South Africa and Namibia – providing a new data corridor between…
21 Mar 5AM 32 min

The internet revolution happening in Olievenhoutbosch

A dusty township in Gauteng is the site of a South African-developed mesh network that could change everything. Read the full story at https://techcentral.co.za/internet-revolution-in-olievenhoutbosch/241698/
20 Mar 10AM 1 hour

Pretoria firm Hydrox Holdings in global hydrogen ‘breakthrough’

South African firm Hydrox Holdings has developed a new way of extracting hydrogen for use in cars and other applications that it believes will help usher in a new era of plentiful clean energy for the world. The company, based in Pretoria, has won a number of awards and other…
9 Feb 5AM 49 min

TechCentral announces TCS Legends

TechCentral, the publisher of South Africa’s leading business technology podcasts, is thrilled to announce the launch of TCS Legends. The new show will feature interviews with (and about) some of the leading figures who helped shape South Africa’s technology industry into what it is today. As the show’s name implies,…
4 Feb 5AM 1 min

Datacentrix CEO Ahmed Mahomed on the Convergence Partners deal

Andile Ngcaba’s Convergence Partners last week announced it was buying storied South African IT services group Datacentrix from Alviva Holdings for an undisclosed sum. Datacentrix’s long-serving CEO, Ahmed Mahomed, joins the TechCentral Show (TCS) to discuss the acquisition, how it happened, why Alviva decided to sell and what the future…
22 Jan 8AM 24 min