Weekly news: 7–13. March

Binance is launching Bifinity, Chinese police is still on the warpath against BTC, the United States Treasury Department and its educational program and the FCA apparently hates BTC ATMs

Binance is launching its own payment company

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance is launching its own subsidiary company focused on providing fiat-to-crypto payments. The company is called Bifinity and its launch was announced by Binance on March 7th. Bifinity will accept more than 50 cryptocurrencies including major coins like Bitcoin (BTC) and ETH (Ethereum). Also, it was announced that it will accept popular payment platforms like Visa, MasterCard and others.

This new platform is made especially for merchants and big businesses, so they can provide these crypto services to their customers. To get some boost right off the start, Bifinity partnered with several huge crypto firms among which is Eqonex (a Nasdaq-listed digital asset investment firm). The platform got initial investment from Eqonex, $36 million. That should help the platform with expanding company’s products.

190 miner machines were busted by Chinese police

After China banned crypto, the mining was banned as well. Now when you are mining crypto in China, you are doing it illegally and you can be punished by law. On March 8 in the Guangdong province, the Development and Reform Commission has busted 190 mining rigs or machines. These machines are valued at 5 million Yuan, which is $791,450. The reason why the police found out about this operation was because of the high power consumption of the charging station they were operating in.

New program for educating people

The United States Treasury Department will launch its own program or initiative. Their plan is to educate more people about cryptocurrencies and investing in them. The reason for this move is that according to the Department, investing into crypto is now more popular than ever and it could pull in less sophisticated investors which would not be sure what to put their money into. They are preparing educational materials that should help public with understanding how crypto assets operate and are different from other traditional assets.

The FCA is shutting down BTC ATMs across the UK.

We already mentioned the UK financial watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), in the last news. Now, the authority is making another strong move against BTC in the United Kingdom. The FCA ordered to shut down every Bitcoin ATM that is on the island or to be subject to undisclosed additional action. The FCA reasoned this move with lack of regulatory structure and the high-risk potential of fluctuating assets.

“We are concerned about crypto ATM machines operating in the UK and will therefore be contacting the operators instructing that the machines be shut down or face further action.”

Thank you for reading.