Amidst vague rumors about shady trade volume manipulations inside its platform, Binance has essentially relocated itself to the sunny Mediterranean island of Malta, from its previous offices in Hong Kong, China and Japan. The move is however also arguably partly justifiable on the grounds that China’s government has become increasingly hostile to crypto exchange ventures such as the Binance service.
Earlier in 2018, Binance surprised numerous finance watchers by declaring that its net profit margins were larger even than those of the giant Deutsche Bank. The company’s most recent reporting indicates $200 million in earnings for Q1, 2018 derived from a massive average trade volume of over $1.47 billion according to data from the site Coinmarketcap. As a result, Binance has been working to increase its liquidity capabilities for the sake of expanding its overall business.
What we can now confirm is that the exchange has formally opened a bank account in Malta and according to company CEO Changpeng Zhao –also known colloquially as CZ– fiat to crypto trading based out of Malta will be starting “within a year”. Near future expansion plans also include offering this same service in certain Asian markets and… Uganda, of all places.
One thing we can certainly say about Malta at this time is that the island is showing itself to be exceptionally friendly to the cryptocurrency finance industry, with even the Prime Minister extending blockchain companies like Binance a formal welcome to an island that already has a reputation for relaxed regulations towards crypto enterprises through its Digital Innovation Authority, which is specifically in place to deliver “legislation to provide legal certainty in the sphere of Blockchain technology and by extension cryptocurrencies.”
During its time in Hong Kong and Japan, Binance tried to receive regulatory license for its operations but was instead warned by the Japanese government that their registration with regulators wasn’t complete enough. Negotiations with the Government of Hong Kong also proved to be unproductive, partly due to the overall climate of legal hostility towards crypto exchanges by Chinese authorities on the Mainland.
The company is definitely working to at least make its overall structure more fluid in terms of deposit and withdrawals. The newly developed liquidity that this implies will possibly attract further investor funding, especially from more established banking interests.
In relation to these aims, Binance is also working on developing a decentralized exchange platform for its services with CEO CZ calling this a high priority project. In order to help this development and others out, the exchange is trying to create a $1 billion dollar cryptocurrency venture fund that will support other blockchain startups. According to CZ, Binance wants at least twenty major investors for this VC project, with each of them capable of showing at least $100 million dollars under management.
