Binance Gets an Approval from Bahrain and a Fine from Turkey + More News

 

Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.

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Exchanges news

• Binance received in-principle approval from the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) to establish itself as a cryptoasset service provider in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The in-principle approval from CBB still requires Binance to complete the full application process, which is expected to be completed in “due course”.
• Turkey’s Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) has fined Binance Turkey TRL 8m (nearly USD 750,000) after the crypto exchange failed the financial watchdog’s audit for monitoring Anti-Money Laundering (AML) compliance, per local outlet Anadolu Agency. With this, Binance reportedly becomes the first crypto business to get fined by the Turkish government. 

Legal news

• Indian Additional Commissioner of Police Shikha Goel warned Indian citizens during an event hosted by the Hyderabad city police about the rise in cybercrime, suggesting not to transfer cryptocurrencies to unauthorized private wallets. After explaining the fraud, Goel also highlighted that sixteen such cases have been registered involving cryptocurrencies.

Mining news

• Bitcoin (BTC) mining difficulty, or the measure of how hard it is to compete for mining rewards, came quite close to its all-time high of 25.05 T recorded in mid-May. On Christmas day, it went up 0.32%, which followed a previous rise of 8.33% recorded two weeks prior – and which together brought the mining difficulty to 24.27 T. The hashrate, or the computational power of the network, has been steadily climbing as well.

Metaverse news

• Polygon (MATIC)-based, luxury marketplace UNXD and Ethereum (ETH)-based Decentraland plan to offer a metaverse fashion week that will include catwalk shows, pop-up shops, and after-parties, according to a tweet. The event is planned for March 24-27. Decentraland called for designers, brands, and fashionistas to present their virtual collections during the fashion week.

Wallets news

• Crypto wallet MetaMask has announced they will release an improved interface that will allow users to view their portfolio value and assets across all accounts, with an easier-to-use experience. They have not given a date of release.