Binance withdraws Abu Dhabi bid amid global licensing reevaluation

Binance’s venture capital arm, Binance Labs, has made an investment in South Korean blockchain games developer, GOMBLE. Binance Labs is a division of the global crypto exchange entity that identifies, invests, and empowers viable blockchain entrepreneurs, startups and communities. In a blog post published by the company late last month, Binance Labs outlined that it has participated in funding GOMBLE at a seed funding round stage. GOMBLE  is an affiliate of South Korea-based 111Percent, a casual mobile game publisher. Sustainable blockchain gamingFor its part, GOMBLE’s objective is to enable the global casual gamer community to experience blockchain games through reward mechanisms that are sustainable. An additional focus for the project is advancing NFT interoperability, through the development of mobile-based blockchain.The start-up plans to use the funding in order to develop and release its first mobile game, RumbyStars. Furthermore, it will continue to pursue a games-as-a-service (GaaS) model, with funding also being used to expand that GaaS-based platform.While blockchain-based gaming had something of an initial breakthrough through the emergence of Axie Infinity, that success was secured with a focus on blockchain rather than gaming, attracting participation via a play-to-earn approach from those already focused primarily on blockchain. Subsequently, many have questioned the sustainability of this approach from the perspectives of gameplay and the tokenomics that support it. A $25 billion market opportunityGOMBLE is focusing on addressing these two factors through its approach. Casual games in the Web2 sphere have seen an uptick in popularity. The casual games sector has the potential to reach a $25 billion market volume within four years. Bringing that Web3 focus on enjoyable game play to Web3 gaming extends that opportunity to blockchain-based gaming.Additionally, GOMBLE is working towards mistakes made with blockchain based gaming tokenomics in the past. It will focus on more balanced tokenomics using its $CRT token for governance. $CRT can be earned by players through a tournament prize system. From the other perspective, it can be spent on NFT purchases, tournament passes and in buying in-game items.This is how Yi He, Head of Binance Labs interprets GOMBLE’s approach: “Blockchain gaming needs to move away from the concept of ‘earning’ to what truly captures the hearts of billions of gamers: entertaining gameplay. GOMBLE’s experienced team and focus on building engaging, social, and sustainable blockchain games with flexible governance offers a pathway for delivering the value of Web3 to existing casual gamers, thus welcoming new users to the BNB Chain ecosystem.” RumbyStarsThe blockchain gaming start-up is planning for a soft release of its first game, RumbyStars within SouthEast Asia in Q2, 2023. Following that limited regional launch, the project will then broaden the offering to North America, South America, East Asia and Europe.Gomble’s CEO Jihoon Byun said that “Unlike existing blockchain games that focus on core games, GOMBLE aims to target the global market with easy and fun casual games that even non-gamers can enjoy. Starting with RumbyStars, GOMBLE is focused on building to provide users around the world with a pleasant experience and a greater diversity of games in the future.”In order to execute on the roadmap the project has set out for itself, it will recruit more development and design manpower. Furthermore, investment will be made in infrastructure in order to enable real-time service.

Coinbase's venture capital arm, Coinbase Ventures, has invested in the India-based crypto trading platform CoinDCX, the American crypto exchange company said on its official blog. This move follows Coinbase's direct entry into the Indian market earlier this year. In March, Coinbase registered with the Financial Intelligence Unit–India (FIU-IND), announcing plans to launch products for retail investors.Photo by PiggyBank on Unsplash100 million crypto holdersWhile the investment sum remains undisclosed, Coinbase highlighted CoinDCX's strong performance indicators. As of July 2025, the Mumbai-headquartered exchange reported a user base of 20.4 million, accounting for about one-fifth of the country’s estimated 100 million crypto holders. CoinDCX also recorded $141 million in annualized group revenue, $165 billion in annualized transaction volumes, and $1.2 billion in assets under custody. The investment targets a market with high adoption. According to Chainalysis’ 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index, India ranked first among 151 countries studied. Regulatory uncertainty in IndiaCoinbase’s push into India, however, comes amid a complex and often contradictory regulatory environment for digital assets. On one hand, India maintains a cautious stance. Profits from crypto transactions are taxed at a flat 30% rate, supplemented by applicable surcharges and an additional 4% cess. Recent reforms unveiled by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) did not mention the acceptance of crypto assets. Rather than supporting cryptocurrencies, regulators have focused on advancing the central bank digital currency (CBDC), the e-rupee, through pilot initiatives in deposit tokenization and a fintech sandbox. This conservative approach was also evident at the recent 6th Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai. According to Reuters, a handout given to speakers at the Oct. 7-9 event read, “Please avoid political, crypto, religious, or personal remarks on stage or at the venue.” On the other hand, some officials have signaled a willingness to engage. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Oct. 4 that India must prepare to engage with cryptocurrencies such as stablecoins, according to the Financial Times. She noted that no country can stay isolated from broader systemic shifts, possibly alluding to the pro-crypto policies emerging in the U.S. and the anticipated acceleration in adoption. Global exchanges resume operationsFurthermore, India has shown more openness to foreign crypto platforms lately. Bybit recently reinstated access to its mobile app for Indian users via the Apple App Store and Google Play. Last year, both Binance and KuCoin registered with the FIU-IND after paying penalties for earlier compliance violations. Binance was fined 188.2 million rupees (about $2.14 million), while KuCoin faced a lighter penalty of around $41,000. 

Hitachi collaborates with Concordium on biometric crypto walletJapan’s Hitachi Solutions, a subsidiary company of the Hitachi multinational conglomerate, has joined forces with the Concordium Foundation, unveiling a collaboration that centers on a state-of-the-art biometric crypto wallet.Photo by Nuno Antunes on UnsplashAlternative approach to securing cryptoAnnounced on Tuesday by the Concordium Foundation, a Swiss-based development team behind the Concordium layer one blockchain, this “proof of technology” initiative has the potential to fundamentally change how users access and secure their cryptocurrency accounts.Breaking away from traditional methods, the proposed biometric crypto wallet leverages users’ fingerprints or facial scans to generate a set of seed words, eliminating the need for users to store or remember them. This novel approach simplifies the restoration process, allowing users to recover their accounts with a mere biometric scan.Improving UXIf crypto and Web3 are to be adopted by ordinary people en-masse, user experience has long been identified within the sector as an area that still requires development. Making users responsible for the storage of a private key is fraught with difficulty, given the likelihood of private keys being lost or compromised.Various approaches are being taken to solve this issue. Tangem Wallet is one such alternative that utilizes near-field communication (NFC) in combination with an app and a card with an inbuilt chip, negating the need for the user to memorize a private key.This biometric-centered approach from Hitachi and Concordium represents another user-friendly approach to the problem of user authentication, harnessing the power of Hitachi’s Public Biometric Infrastructure (PBI) and Concordium’s self-sovereign identity framework. The result is an account creation process based entirely on biometric data, enhancing both security and user convenience.Complementary technologyConcordium’s network, with its stringent ID process for account creation to combat malicious activities, stands to gain substantial benefits from this technology. The biometric wallet will fortify users’ access to their IDs, a critical aspect of network security. Moreover, the technology’s applicability extends beyond Concordium, offering potential integration with any blockchain network.Users of the biometric wallet will have the flexibility to unlock their accounts either by regenerating seed words through a biometric scan or by decrypting a copy of the seed words. This dual-layered approach ensures that access is granted solely through the user’s unique biometric data, enhancing security and mitigating the risk of loss or theft.Developing this cutting-edge technology poses challenges, particularly in handling the inherent “fuzziness” of biometric data, where no two scans produce identical results, even from the same individual. Hitachi’s team addressed this by employing fuzzy key generation and specialized error correction technology, effectively distinguishing between scans.Unlike traditional crypto wallets that necessitate secure storage of seed words, the biometric wallet by Hitachi and Concordium, alongside solutions like multiparty-computation wallets and magic links, aims to overcome this hurdle. The goal is to resolve the issue of lost backup, a significant barrier to wider crypto adoption.This is not Hitachi’s first foray into the crypto/blockchain space. In mid-November the company announced a collaboration with the Japan Exchange Group (JPX), banking giant Nomura and Nomura portfolio company BOOSTRY to launch a $69 million digital green bond on the blockchain. In October Hitachi joined a consortium of Japanese companies with a view towards developing decentralized identity technology.