The Bahrain Economic Development Board announced that it has welcomed Singapore Based digital asset bank Whampoa Group to Bahrain. Whampoa will be setting up its new digital bank headquarters in Bahrain. The digital bank, which offers integrated financial solutions to serve institutions, innovators, and sophisticated investors globally, including digital banking services and the trading, custody, and asset management of digital assets, will open its operations in Bahrain by the end of year. In 2022, Whampoa Group had announced plans to raise $50 million for a crypto hedge fund and had announced plans to set up a venture capital fund to invest in digital assets. "We are delighted that Whampoa Group intends to set up the headquarters of their new digital bank in Bahrain as they would benefit from Bahrain's pro-innovation environment and forward-looking regulatory framework. The establishment of these types of institutions is vital to further strengthen the existing digital...

  US based Poloniex, LLC, a Delaware company with its principal place of business in Boston, Massachusetts which previously operated an online trading and settlement platform previously doing business as Poloniex Inc. (hereinafter collectively “Poloniex”) has agreed to remit $7,591,630 to settle its potential civil liability for 65,942 apparent violations of multiple sanctions programs with countries such as Syria, Sudan, Iran, and Crimea with U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC.)   As noted by OFAC, between January 2014 and November 2019, the Poloniex trading platform allowed customers apparently located in sanctioned jurisdictions to engage in online digital asset-related transactions consisting of trades, deposits, and withdrawals—with a combined value of $15,335,349, despite having reason to know their location based on both Know Your Customer information and internet protocol address data. As per the OFAC statement, the settlement...

  Singaporean start-up, KoinBasket, which recently received a 2 million USD pre-seed funding, is launching the UAE’s first crypto basket application. The company wants to make investing in crypto as easy as online shopping. As per the press release , the crypto basket application will also provide the with superlative fundamental analysis from KoinBasket. The company is backed by marquee investors that include Angellist quant fund, Stonks fund, Kube VC cryptopreneurs like Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal and Global CXOs from Ripple, Binance Citibank, Google, Accenture, Nomura, Fiserv and many more. Elaborating on how KoinBasket’s collaboration with global crypto exchanges will transform the way the world invests in crypto assets, Co-Founder and CEO Khaleelulla Baig states, “The UAE is an emerging market for us and we are excited to launch a variety of basket options in the Emirates, which is rapidly growing to become a global crypto hub with proactive and encouraging regulations...

  At The World Economic Forum in Davos UAE’s DP World, a global end to end logistics provider announced that it would be utilizing the metaverse not for social networks, entertainment or enhancing customer experience but for increasing operational efficiency. This is the first time that a metaverse solution is being utilized in the logistics industry and for operational and educational purposes. The Metaverse, DPMETAWORLD, will aim to bring cutting edge virtual solutions to real world supply chain challenges driving both efficiency and transparency. Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Group chairman and CEO of DP World announced this during the World Economic Forum Annual meeting at Davos. The DPMETAWORLD platform will be launched at the end of 2022. Bin Sulayem said: “At DP World, we don’t respond to change – we think ahead and anticipate it. We know that the industries of the future will not be industries of the hand, but of the mind. So we have to deploy industry-leading solutions...