Dubai: Dubai is reprimanding BitOasis, one of the largest crypto platforms focused on customers in the Middle East, for failing to meet mandated conditions set forth by the local regulator.
The emirate’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority issued a market alert on Monday, saying it had initiated an enforcement action against the crypto exchange.
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“BitOasis is under review for not meeting mandated conditions, required to be satisfied within 30-60 day timeframes prior to being permitted to undertake any VARA regulated market activity,” the regulator said in the alert, which was sent to Bloomberg News.
Earlier this year, BitOasis received the first of Dubai’s so-called “minimum viable product operational licenses.” Further actions may include rescinding the exchange’s license to operate, according to the alert.
The license would allow BitOasis to offer broker-dealer services for digital assets “to qualified retail and institutional investors from its Dubai HQ under VARA’s regulatory regime,” the company said in a statement at the time.
BitOasis declined to comment on the VARA alert. Regulators in Dubai did not immediately return requests for comment.
The reprimand is one of the latest in a global flurry of enforcement activity against crypto companies. In April, VARA said it had issued a written reprimand to Kyle Davies and Su Zhu, the co-founders of the now-bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, as well as to Mark Lamb, Sudhu Arumugam and Leslie Lamb related to the activities of digital-asset exchange OPNX.
