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2022-11-17 04:03:02 Binance gets regulatory nod for institutional crypto custody in Abu Dhabi

Binance has secured permission from regulators in Abu Dhabi to operate as a crypto custodian for institutional clients. The crypto exchange received the regulatory nod from Abu Dhabi’s Financial Services Regulatory Authority. This body is a unit of the Abu Dhabi Global Market, which functions as the financial center of the United Arab Emirate’s capital city. Binance previously received in-principle approval from Abu Dhabi authorities to operate as a crypto broker-dealer. Wednesday’s regulatory nod expands the company’s presence in the UAE and the Persian Gulf at large. The exchange giant also has license approval from regulators in Dubai, UAE’s commercial capital. Binance’s operations in the UAE and the Persian Gulf are under a subsidiary called Binance AD. Dominic Longman, senior executive officer at Binance AD.

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2022-11-16 21:05:10 BlockFi preps possible Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing: WSJ

Crypto lending firm BlockFi is preparing for a possible Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing, according to the Wall Street Journal. The firm also plans to conduct layoffs, the journal reported, citing people familiar with the process. citing "significant exposure to FTX and associated corporate entities.". BlockFi signed a credit deal with FTX US earlier this year with the right to be potentially acquired. Since FTX's collapse, BlockFi has struggled to continue business operations. Last week, BlockFi’s founder and chief operating officer, Flori Marquez, had said on Twitter that all of the company’s products were operational and client withdrawals were being processed. Marquez had also said that BlockFi’s credit line was from FTX US and that BlockFi would be an independent entity until at least July.

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2022-11-16 16:03:00 Bahamas approves provisional liquidators for FTX assets

The Supreme Court of the Bahamas approved provisional liquidators to oversee FTX Digital Markets Ltd.'s assets, according to the Securities Commission of the Bahamas. Brian Simms has been approved as a court-supervised provisional liquidator, while PricewaterhouseCoopers' Kevin Cambridge and Peter Greaves were approved as joint provisional liquidators. The multijurisdictional nature of the FTX situation — which involves FTX Digital Markets LTd., FTX Trading Ltd., Alameda Research Ltd., and others — was also noted in the release, where the Bahamian authorities share expectations "to engage with other supervisory authorities on a regulator-to-regulator basis.". The news follows Sunday's release from the Royal Bahamas Police Force, which shared that a team of financial investigators from its Financial Crimes Investigation Branch are investigating if any criminal misconduct occured.

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2022-11-16 10:03:00 UK Treasury Committee to probe Binance’s role in FTX collapse

According to the report, the U.K. Parliament’s Treasury Committee questioned why Binance revealed it was selling $500 million worth of FTT tokens on Nov. 6, and whether the exchange knew it could trigger FTX’s collapse during a cryptoasset inquiry. Lawmakers in the U.K. have asked Binance to submit internal discussions and documents. Binance vice president of government affairs in Europe Daniel Trinder appeared before the Committee as a witness and said that Binance had no intention to trigger a collapse and made those decisions to protects its users. He added that the exchange will submit the requested documents as evidence on Nov. 15. Trinder said the exchange may choose to redact certain information from the requested documents.

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2022-11-03 04:03:00 Binance CEO would join Twitter board if Elon Musk asks

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao says he’d be willing to join Twitter’s board of directors if invited by the social media platform’s new owner Elon Musk. "Elon’s still deciding about the board, if he asks me to do it I probably will,” Zhao said while speaking at technology conference in Lisbon, Portugal. Binance recently poured $500 million into Elon Musk’s takeover bid for social media platform Twitter, which closed last week. Despite a rocky acquisition process, Binance’s top boss stuck to his plans to lend financial support to Musk’s $44 billion bid. The crypto exchange was among dozens of outside investors which also included Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, venture capital firm Sequoia and Fidelity.

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2022-11-02 21:29:01 Swiss regulator includes AML provisions for crypto transactions

Switzerland’s financial regulator will include crypto in its anti-money laundering regulations. From next year, Swiss citizens will need to confirm their identity when conducting crypto transfers of over 1000 Swiss francs ($1005), the Financial Market Supervisory Authority said in a release. Finma reportedly received “numerous responses concerning the specification of the threshold for transactions with virtual currencies.” Despite the concerns raised in the consultation, the monetary regulator went forward with the previously established threshold of 1000 Swiss francs due to “risks and recent instances of abuse.”.

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2022-11-02 16:25:00 Crypto exchange volumes hit 23-month low

Cryptocurrency exchange volume in October was just $543 billion — down from $733 billion in September — according to The Block's data dashboard. The last time levels were this low was in December 2020, when they came in at $385 billion. (The same month, bitcoin hit multiple new all-time highs, trading above $28,000.). October marked six months since the crypto downturn began and five months since the high-profile TerraUSD collapse. Prices were stagnant for most of the month before rallying last week. Volatility hit its lowest levels since July 2020 in October. North American volumes fell to just over $78 billion.

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2022-11-02 10:25:00 Binance sets up seventh unit in Ireland

Crypto exchange operator Binance set up a seventh unit in Ireland as it continues to expand its roots in Europe. Binance Global Sourcing was established last week, according to records from the Companies Registration Office (CRO), the central repository of public statutory information on Irish companies. The news comes after Binance picked Paris as its European hub after France's financial regulator granted Binance a license to offer and market its services to local customers in May. Last year, Binance considered Ireland as part of its plans to establish a number of headquarters worldwide to break with its "decentralized" structure and improve relations with regulators.

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2022-11-02 04:25:00 MoneyGram app adds bitcoin, ether and litecoin crypto trading tools

MoneyGram, a publicly traded peer-to-pay payments company, has added crypto investment tools to its mobile app as fellow fintech firms bolster offerings in the sector. Available in the majority of U.S. states today, users are now able to buy, sell and hold bitcoin, ether and litecoin, the company said in a statement. The move follows previous forays into crypto by the company, which recently partnered with Stellar to enable payment settlements and local currency payouts using USDC.

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2022-11-01 22:10:02 Stasis integrates euro-backed stablecoin with XRP Ledger

XRP Ledger is an open-source blockchain developed by a community and cross-border payment company Ripple. Stasis aims to make cross-border payments cheaper and faster by integrating the blockchain with EURS, as well as improve scalability. Another brick has just been added into the foundation of EURS, and it will solidify our asset for the next cycle of stablecoin market adoption," Stasis CEO Gregory Klumov said in a statement. "Our ongoing partnership will focus on exploring the newly-emerged opportunities of XRP to enable a better financial inclusion as well as stablecoin infrastructure and services that truly align with the values of the Web3 realm," they continued.

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