Rock on, Gibraltar: Pro-crypto regulation pulls Binance and big players

Gibraltar’s 6.8km2 territory houses 35,000 people and several large international crypto companies. The British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar, ruled by the United Kingdom and an important gateway to Europe, is an attractive jurisdiction for distributed ledger technologies (DLT) or simply crypto.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, is now hiring for four roles in the “Rock of Gibraltar,” up from two roles one week ago. CZ, CEO of Binance, met with Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo in December 2021 after it was revealed that Picardo had the Binance app on his laptop:

Head of State’s tweet. What do you see? https://t.co/VKVzd8972T

— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) December 1, 2021

Reportedly, CZ visited ‘The Rock’ in 2022, and Binance Gibraltar job openings have since popped up on the exchange’s website. Cointelegraph approached Binance to query when the Gibraltar office would open. A spokesperson from Binance, which has no official headquarters internationally, told Cointelegraph that the group “is a remote-first organization with many of our employees working remotely.”

“Binance will be establishing multiple regional offices. France and Dubai will be our offices in the Europe and Middle East regions, respectively.”

The group did not respond to the question of whether the group would establish a physical presence in Gibraltar. However, Binance would be in good company in the increasingly pro-crypto British Overseas Territory.

Bitso and Huobi established their European operations from Gibraltar; Damex has a physical presence and countless advertising boards around the city and Tap.Global has offices on the main street. The government is certainly crypto friendly. The Member of Parliament for Digital and Financial Services, Albert Isola, told Cointelegraph that he’s a HODLer:

Wait…how much $BTC does the Minister of Digital and Financial Services of Gibraltar hold? @JoeNakamoto sat down to discuss crypto adoption, regulation, and views on Bitcoin in Gibraltar. pic.twitter.com/NKxdeNKbvn

— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) August 2, 2022

Joey García, the Head of Public Affairs for Bitcoin-first Xapo Bank, a fully regulated bank based in Gibraltar, told Cointelegraph that Gibraltar is “nimble” and an ideal territory for adopting new technologies:

“Small jurisdictions can move faster. We’ve seen it again and again [in Gibraltar], whether it’s crowdfunding or new areas of development. Xapo, for example, got their e-money license in Gibraltar in 2017.”

Xapo Bank CEO Wences Casares is known as “patient zero” in the Bitcoin (BTC) world. The Argentian businessperson reportedly advocated for Bitcoin among tech execs in Silicon Valley. Quartz reported that Casares attempted to orange-pill Bill Gates, while Bloomberg reported that Xapo custodied over $10 billion Bitcoin in its vaults.

The Xapo vaults are now located in Grand Casemates Square, Gibraltar’s…