Turkish watchdog fines Binance
ISTANBUL
Turkey’s Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) fined Binance, or BN Teknoloji, 8 million Turkish Liras (nearly $703,000) in a first move against a cryptocurrency platform by a watchdog.
On May 4, MASAK released a guide for crypto asset service providers. Under the guidelines, crypto exchange platforms are entitled to verify the identities of subscribers, to report suspicious transactions and high-volume trading. In the failure of fulfilling those obligations, crypto exchange companies could be fined by MASAK and in case of recurrence, their owners could face prosecution.
The move came after several cryptocurrency platforms abruptly shut down, leaving thousands of investors in heavy losses. Thodex founder and CEO Faruk Fatih Özer, who fled to Albania, remained the sole suspect on the run in the judicial investigation into the cryptocurrency exchange platform. The 24-hour trading volume on Thodex, which had 400,000 users, was $538 million on its last trading day on April 20, according to Coinmarketcap.
The Central Bank’s ban on using cryptocurrencies for making payments, which was introduced in response to claims that such transactions are too risky, took effect on April 30.
By comparison, daily trading volume on Binance, the largest crypto platform in Turkey, is around $320 million, according to CoinGecko.
