Announcements

We looked at two landmark documents pertaining to cryptocurrency legalization in Europe: the EU Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation (MiCA) and a similar paper from the central bank of Great Britain. These massive and extremely substantive pieces consist of hundreds of pages outlining the European vision of cryptocurrencies’ role and place in the modern world and…

Lightning Labs announced Tuesday that it is building infrastructure that would allow users to send money worldwide at a low cost and almost instantaneously through the Bitcoin network. Taro protocol, which will enable stablecoin transactions, is based on Bitcoin’s Taproot upgrade launched in November 2021. According to Decrypt, the company raised $70 million in a…

Binance, the largest crypto exchange by trading volume, is recruiting over 100 positions in the UAE and is helping to shape Dubai’s new virtual assets’ regulations, its MENA regional head said. As Reuters reported, Binance’s activity in the Gulf state has boosted in recent months as the UAE tries to style itself as the world’s…

The Qatar Central Bank (QCB) is currently exploring a central bank digital currency (CBDC) and digital bank licensing, a top official said. The Middle Eastern nation is also weighing issuing licenses for digital banks as it seeks to digitize payments. The Qatar Central Bank intends to soon reveal its direction on CBDCs, Alanood Abdullah Al…

Buyers on OpenSea, the world’s leading NFT marketplace, can soon pay for non-fungible tokens without having cryptocurrency – with a credit card, debit card, Google Pay or Apple Pay. This move, which could bring in more newcomers to the NFT space, followed after the announcement of Solana NFT integration. The move comes through a partnership…

BitOasis, a Middle East-focused crypto exchange based in the UAE, has received provisional approval from Dubai’s new crypto regulator (VARA), while the UAE pushes to become a global hub for the virtual asset sector. Earlier this month, Dubai enacted its first law governing digital assets, establishing the Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA) to oversee the…