Bahrain’s Central Bank Issues New Cryptocurrency Regulation

Published at: Feb. 25, 2019

The Central Bank of Bahrain has issued new cryptocurrency regulation, English-language local media TradeArabia reports on Feb. 25.

Before, in December last year, the central bank had issued draft proposals to potentially regulate and license crypto asset services.

The new rules reportedly concern licensing, governance, risk management, Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing measures, business conduct, conflict of interest avoidance, reporting and cybersecurity. The regulation also establishes new supervision and enforcement standards.

Cryptocurrency exchanges licensed by Bahrain’s central bank will now also have to respect guidelines concerning order matching, pre and post-trade transparency, market manipulation and market abuse avoidance, as well as conflicts of interest.

According to TradeArabia, the central bank’s regulation has also specified that the crypto exchanges will need to have enhanced due diligence when onboarding new clients, as well as specifications involving assurance that safe encrypted custody wallets will always be able to be retrieved.

As Cointelegraph recently reported, Bahrain’s central bank previously launched a regulatory sandbox to allow blockchain and crypto companies to work in the country, pending formalized regulations.

Also, in January, the University of Bahrain announced that they will issue diplomas on the blockchain using the Blockcerts open standard in partnership with Learning Machine, a startup providing a system to issue verifiable official records using a blockchain-anchored format.

Tags
Bitcoin Regulation
Cryptocurrency Exchange
Cryptocurrencies
Central Bank
Cybersecurity
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