Binance to make Ireland part of its HQ plans
The CEO of Binance has said he wishes to break away from its “decentralised” structure
Binance, currently the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, has announced it sees Ireland as part of its plans to establish several headquarters across the world. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao broke the news in an interview with Reuters yesterday.
Regulators from around the world, including the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), have issued warnings and bans on Binance. In July, Binance updated its website and app with a notice about Binance Markets Ltd (BML) as requested by the FCA. BML was told by the FCA that it must cease all regulated activities with “immediate effect”.
The financial watchdog pointed out that while it did not regulate cryptoassets, such as bitcoin or ether, it did regulate certain cryptoasset derivatives, such as futures contracts, contracts for difference and options, as well as those cryptoassets it considered to be securities.
Due to this, Zhao stated in the same month that he wishes to improve relations with regulators, to break from its “decentralised” structure and establish regional headquarters.
Binance has registered three firms in Ireland
Zhao explained: “Historically, we claim that we don’t have headquarters. We are actually just in the process of establishing a few headquarters in different parts of the world.”
In September, Binance registered three firms in Ireland. When asked if Ireland features in Binance’s plans to establish headquarters in an individual country, Zhao replied: “Yes it does.”
Zhao added: “When we first started, we wanted to embrace the decentralised principles, no headquarters, work all around the world, no borders. It’s very clear now to run a centralised exchange, you need a centralised, legal entity structure behind it.”
Binance hires former IRS agents
At the beginning of October, Binance hired two former special agents from the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) Cyber Crimes Unit in Washington, DC, to boost the security of the company.
They are Tigran Gambaryan, who has been given the role of vice president (VP) of global intelligence and investigations, and Matthew Price, who was appointed senior director of investigations.
