Bitwala to bank? The company has announced what it's calling a blockchain bank account.

Good evening. I'm Brady Dale, and this is late confirmation from CoinDesk. On today's show,

a cryptocurrency exchange in Bahrain may become the Persian Gulf's first to be licensed by a central bank.

Also, Swiss regulators have

given their blessing to a cryptocurrency asset fund, and Bitwala has struck a partnership with a

notable German fintech startup as part of its mission to launch what it calls a blockchain

bank account. We'll have all that and more coming up on late confirmation.

Two blockchain veterans are gearing up to launch what could be the first cryptocurrency

exchange in the Persian Gulf to be licensed by a central bank. Revealed exclusively to

CoinDask, Rain Financial has opened its public waiting list after a year in the central bank of Bahrain's Fintech sandbox.

The project aims to offer both a brokerage for retail crypto investors and an institutional platform along the lines of Coinbase Pro in Silicon Valley.

Khalid Saad, CEO of Bahrain FinTech Bay, a nonprofit co-working space for startups, told

Coindexclay-Quinn, there's no cryptocurrency exchange in the region that is officially regulated.

Hopefully, Rain will be the first one.

Rain Financial is seeking to cater to an institutional consumer base, which sets it apart

from other long-running Bitcoin startups like Bit Oasis, yet, like other crypto firms in

the region, Rain faced an uphill battle in securing the partners and approval needed to operate.

Backing their vision are crypto veterans, such as Cumberland mining founder Mike Komeranski,

Bitcoin Core developer Jimmy Song, and BRD Crypto Wallet co-founder, Aaron Lasher.

Moving to Switzerland, a financial markets regulator in that country has issued a license

to a cryptocurrency investment fund. it's a move that opens the

door for wider institutional participation in the country's crypto activities.

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