Bermuda Could Emerge as a Crypto Hub, Minister of Economy Says

Please fol­low and like us:
Pin Share

Jason Hay­ward – Bermuda’s Min­is­ter of Econ­o­my and Labor – believes the island has the abil­i­ty to turn into a glob­al cen­ter of the cryp­tocur­ren­cy indus­try. On the oth­er hand, the sec­tor should oper­ate under a com­pre­hen­sive reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work so that investors could have more pro­tec­tion in events like the recent col­lapse of Luna/UST, the politi­cian added.

Crypto’s Crash is not a Concern to Bermuda

Bermuda’s Min­is­ter of Econ­o­my and Labor – Jason Hay­ward – does not see the recent plunge in the cryp­tocur­ren­cy mar­ket as an inher­ent­ly adverse event. In his view, this could even aid the island’s goal to turn into a dig­i­tal asset hub:

“We are aware of the recent deval­u­a­tion in the price of cryp­tocur­ren­cies and remain con­fi­dent that it does not threat­en the island’s abil­i­ty to become a cryp­to hub. This indus­try down­turn is like­ly to advance our goal and pos­i­tive­ly impact our long-term growth and role in this sector.”

Hay­ward remind­ed that the author­i­ties of Bermu­da start­ed open­ing their arms to the cryp­tocur­ren­cy space in 2018. The gov­ern­ment stood as an advo­cate of the asset class even dur­ing the bear mar­ket in 2018, hint­ing that this sup­port could pre­serve dur­ing the cur­rent decline.

Nonethe­less, the Min­is­ter opined that estab­lish­ing prop­er reg­u­la­tions is urgent due to the col­lapse of Terra’s native token Luna and its algo­rith­mic sta­ble­coin UST. Such super­vi­sion could lim­it future investors’ loss­es, he added.

Jason Hayward
Jason Hay­ward, Source: Bernews

Accord­ing to David Schwartz – Pres­i­dent of the Finan­cial & Inter­na­tion­al Busi­ness Asso­ci­a­tion – Bermu­da is among the world’s lead­ers in terms of estab­lish­ing infra­struc­ture for cryp­to busi­ness­es and impos­ing appro­pri­ate reg­u­la­tions. The local author­i­ties have also tight­ened the anti-mon­ey laun­der­ing con­trols, mon­i­tor­ing whether bit­coin or the alt­coins take part in illic­it transactions.

Leg­is­la­tion approved in 2018 requires all cryp­tocur­ren­cy com­pa­nies in Bermu­da to get a license from the Bermu­da Mon­e­tary Author­i­ty (BMA). The island’s top finan­cial watch­dog also con­trols the domes­tic insur­ance and rein­sur­ance industry.

The BMA has giv­en its green light to 14 cryp­to firms to oper­ate on local soil, with some of the Notable enter­pris­es being Cir­cle, Block­Fi, and Bittrex.

Crypto Hubs Across the Globe

When speak­ing of coun­tries with a pos­i­tive stance on the dig­i­tal asset indus­try, Por­tu­gal and Gibral­tar are worth men­tion­ing. The for­mer treats the asset class as a cur­ren­cy and does not impose VAT or oth­er tax­es on local investors. Most recent­ly, the nation’s author­i­ties dab­bled with imple­ment­ing such a tax but ulti­mate­ly reject­ed the proposal.

The British Over­seas Ter­ri­to­ry of Gibral­tar is anoth­er exam­ple. It has a reg­u­lat­ed cryp­tocur­ren­cy regime designed to pro­tect busi­ness­es that deal with the asset class and is among the lead­ers in terms of blockchain adoption.

Not long ago, the lead­ing Chi­nese cryp­to exchange – Huo­bi – revealed its inten­tions to move its spot-trad­ing oper­a­tions there.

SPECIAL OFFER (Spon­sored)

Binance Free $100 (Exclu­sive): Use this link to reg­is­ter and receive $100 free and 10% off fees on Binance Futures first month (terms).

PrimeXBT Spe­cial Offer: Use this link to reg­is­ter & enter POTATO50 code to receive up to $7,000 on your deposits.

Source link

Please fol­low and like us:
Pin Share

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *