Turkish digital asset platform Bitexen opens in South Africa after 18 months of regulatory groundwork

Cape Town office marks the company's entry into a market where crypto assets are regulated as financial products, with a focus on tokenisation and blockchain-based payments rather than exchange volumes alone.

Mark Diuga, CEO of Bitexen South Africa.

Bitexen, a digital asset platform headquartered in Türkiye with more than four million users across Türkiye, Europe and the UAE, has launched operations in South Africa following 18 months of preparation that included establishing banking relationships, completing regulatory processes and building local operational infrastructure. The company has opened an office in Cape Town and is assembling a local team to manage operations, partnerships and compliance.

Bitexen's existing business spans exchange operations, digital asset issuance and blockchain-based financial infrastructure. Since 2020, the company has supported more than 80 token issuance events in Türkiye, raising approximately $65 million, a significant portion of which involved fan tokens linked to football clubs. Those projects gave the company experience in issuance mechanics, platform integration and distribution at scale.

The South Africa entry represents a deliberate shift in focus. Rather than replicating a pure exchange model, Bitexen is positioning its local operation around tokenised real-world assets, blockchain-based payment systems and services for financial institutions looking to engage with digital assets through a more structured framework. Tokenisation, in this context, refers to representing ownership or participation in a physical or financial asset digitally, enabling it to be divided into smaller tradable units and broadening access to assets that would otherwise require larger capital commitments.

Alphan Gö?ü?, global CEO of Bitexen, described the company's direction: "We are building the financial infrastructure of the future at a global scale. In South Africa, real-world asset tokenisation, fan token ecosystems and digital payments will form key pillars of that strategy."

The choice of South Africa as an entry point was driven partly by the regulatory environment. The Financial Sector Conduct Authority classifies crypto assets as financial products, which introduces licensing and compliance requirements but also provides clearer operating rules than markets where the regulatory position remains undefined. Mark Diuga, CEO of Bitexen South Africa, pointed to this as a factor in the decision:

"South Africa presents a unique opportunity because of its regulatory maturity and financial sophistication, which allows us to build responsibly from day one. We are seeing a global shift away from purely trading-driven activity toward real-world applications of digital assets."

In the South African market, Bitexen will compete with established players including Binance, VALR and Luno, all of which operate primarily as trading platforms. Bitexen's differentiation is intended to come from its infrastructure and issuance capabilities rather than from exchange volumes alone.