Turkish Crypto Exchange Paribu Buys Majority Stake In Competitor...
Paribu has bought a majority stake in Dubai- and Bahrain-licensed CoinMENA in a deal valuing the exchange at up to $240 million.
Turkish crypto exchange Paribu has acquired a majority stake in CoinMENA, a Sharia-compliant cryptocurrency exchange licensed in Dubai and Bahrain.
According to a Thursday CoinMENA announcement, Paribu acquired a majority stake in CoinMENA in a deal valuing the company at up to $240 million. The company claims the transaction is Türkiye’s largest fintech deal to date and the country’s first cross-border acquisition of a digital asset platform.
Paribu said it plans to use the acquisition to scale its operations beyond its home market. CoinMENA obtained a license from Bahrain’s central bank in early 2021 and another from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority at the end of 2023.
“With this acquisition, we have expanded our licensed operations to a wider geography, becoming a regulated player in one of the world’s most crypto-adoptive markets,“ Paribu founder and CEO Yasin Oral said.
Related: The future of crypto in the Asia-Middle East corridor lies in permissioned scale
Oral said he expects the deal to have far-reaching consequences “for the digital asset and broader finance ecosystem in Türkiye and the ”Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region:
Related: Crypto to become UAE’s second-biggest sector in 5 years — Institutional investor
The announcement follows numerous developments in the MENA region over the past few months. In late November, Ripple’s dollar-pegged stablecoin was cleared for use by institutions in Abu Dhabi after winning recognition as an Accepted Fiat-Referenced Token by the local watchdog.
Also in November, a new decree by the United Arab Emirates’ central bank was reported to bring decentralized finance and the broader Web3 industry under regulatory parameters. In early October, cryptocurrency exchange Bybit secured a Virtual Asset Platform Operator License from the Securities and Commodities Authority of the United Arab Emirates.
Source: CoinTelegraph
