Binance Moves its Headquarters to Malta Seeking More Crypto-Friendly Legislation

[Nevkeke]

One of the fastest growing crypto exchanges over the past year, Binance, announced on its official blog its intention to move operations to the European island of Malta.

This decision comes after the difficulties experienced to operate under the conditions imposed by the Japanese government. A few weeks ago the Asian newspaper Nikkei reported that the Financial Services Agency of Japan (FSA) said Binance was operating in Japan with no registration and judged that investors could suffer damage. In turn, this led many investors panicked, and this immediately led to a bearish trend in bitcoin prices.

The warning announced by the FSA, in addition to a series of obstacles and government threats made Asia an unpleasant place for an exchange as crucial to markets as Binance.

Previously, on February 9, Hong-Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC)  issued a warning that indirectly affected Binance:

"Investors who store their fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies with unregulated cryptocurrency exchanges should be aware of the risks of hacking and misappropriation of assets.”

[oni4an]

Binance-This is a very good exchange, with an excellent system of protection, which will try to overcome more than once hackers. I love that the exchange does not stand still, and develops, it's just a great top stock exchange. Malta I find a great choice.

[cryptocrusher]

Binance grew rapidly to be the top exchange and the only way it will remain there is to remain on the top of its game. If they feel that Japan will give them a harder time of things in an unnecessary way then moving is a logical choice. It would be interesting to know exactly what they disagreed with because it seems Japan are making moves to better regulate exchanges but more from a security point of view than anything else.

[btc_angela]

Binance is the top crypto trading exchanges so it really make sense for them to move to places that is very friendly to crypto like Malta, so no surprises here. They are looking for their long term goals. Governments around the world is clamping on crypto and they do want to be caught off guard. Similar to what happened to our Chinese exchanges. At least Binance is looking for their customers and they wanted to remain one step ahead of everyone by moving to a nation that is secure with no pressure from the government.

[JanpriX]

Well, that escalated quickly.  I just read some tweet few days ago that Binance will still be able to function well as an exchange despite the issue that they are having with the Japanese authorities. If the news that you provided is true, they are indeed one heck of an exchange. Being able to do that in just a matter of days is a no joke and should receive some commendable praises from the community. They are slowly etching their name in the cryptocurrency world by doing such incredible things.

For any of those who wanted to have a look at a proper article regarding this news, kindly go to this link: https://medium.com/binanceexchange/binance-the-worlds-largest-crypto-exchange-announces-investment-in-malta-4c7e51136563

[squatz1]

Honestly they're a smart country for doing something like this, they're going to reap all of the rewards that come with accepting new tech. They're going to get all of the new jobs, all of the tax money, and everything in between.  It's a smart move, as all of these crypto companies are going to need a safe haven where they know they're going to be able to hide from regulation with.

Bright country with some bright leaders. Who knows what the banks will do in Malta.

[Suharti12]

Strict regulatory rules are very troublesome and when binends are moved it is a good thing to do, and bad news stories greatly affect market prices and declining prices due to lack of trust.

[dollarneed]

It's better for them and the member if they have to move their headquarters, yup better to find a good place to start again and I support them, I thought Japanese government is very welcome with bitcoin ok I was wrong. If all the country tribulates the exchange then all the exchanges would move their headquarters to Malta and the problem solved lol.

[nazaididuan1]

Although Binance is registered in Hong Kong, Hong Kong is also part of China, which prohibits BTC and digital encrypted currency transactions.

Binance goes to a country where digital encryption is legal and can be supported and protected by the government!

More conducive to its globalization development!

[BitHodler]

Binance-This is a very good exchange, with an excellent system of protection, which will try to overcome more than once hackers.

If you're referring to the recent phishing attack on users to pump a coin with their balance, then it's nothing really special. Every exchange has similar security measures in place that will get triggered by malicious activity.

In this case it wasn't all that difficult to detect for their system because of how wide spread and obvious the attack was. It might have been successful if they didn't go all out in such a short period of time.

Hong Kong is slowly but surely becoming the next place to avoid for exchanges and services, and Binance making the shift is a logical result of that. They act before they really have to act, so they avoid potential problems in advance.

I am still somewhat flabbergasted by how this exchange has managed to grow that explosively. It wasn't all that long ago where people didn't even know what Binance was, and now it's one of the largest exchanges.

[European Central Bank]

well, if i were the world's largest exchange looking for a new home i'd be looking for somewhere that was more of a player than malta. it doesn't have the greatest rep at the moment and could easily come under major political pressure if the EU or elsewhere decided to come down heavy on crypto.

it's possible binance's turnover could be several factors higher than malta's GDP in a few years. that would make both binance and malta a big fat target, but not quite big enough to shrug off the slings and arrows heading for it.

i hope they spread their bets a little wider than just this one place.

[Dapper]

It's a beautiful country with solid offshore banking.   And while the orthodox btc crowd seems to dislike anything with the word 'bank' in it, in the reality, in the real world, in order for crypto to grow, you need to have active and accessible flow from fiat intro crypto, and you need it from the real liquid money players in the world, not so much so from the 9-5 piker crowd hoping/praying that their 2 btc will be worth 2 million one day.   

[Retro998]

LOL. I thought Binance was in China for some reason.

Going to Europe is a good move. Now Binance can't be shut down by the Communist peeps.

Here, I thought that Japan was actually more crypto-friendly, but if they're giving Binance troubles... yeah idk anymore. Just spells more FUD.

[Enjorlas]

Good think , it would be sad to leave this great exchange because of some regulation.

[David20182018]

Tokens launched on Binance means good success.

[pooya87]

i don't like this at all.

i was actually looking forward to see a properly regulated exchange with reasonable regulatory rules in a country that is known to be bitcoin friendly already (Japan). because i expect that such regulations should make these exchanges safe and eliminate repetition of things like Mt Gox (which was in Japan also and was not regulated) as best as possible.
to be honest this escape from regulations does not look good to me, specially since they recently had an "alleged hack"!