Bermuda, The New Address of Crypto Firms?

Bermuda, an archipelago region in the Atlantic Ocean, located about 1,000 kilometers from the US mainland, has become the new hub for crypto companies. Bermuda, which was licensed by companies such as Block and Circle and completed crypto regulations in 2018, has also recently licensed Coinbase. After obtaining the license, the exchange opened a derivatives trading platform here.

Speaking to The Block, Phil Berg, the head of the New York-based Otterbourg law firm, stated that Bermuda is now on its way to becoming a crypto center and said:

The US’s delay in passing clear laws on crypto, as well as the enforcement of regulation through sanctions, is causing companies to flee. However, Bermuda, with its clearer regulations, has also become a point of attraction for crypto companies. The only negative point here is that the total population of Bermuda is around 70,000… Not all of a trillion-dollar industry can come here.

The President of Bermuda, David Burt, said at the Consensus Conference in Texas, which he attended at the end of April, that Bermuda has now proven itself in terms of regulatory competence:

Both Coinbase and other crypto companies have now acknowledged that we are a competent country when it comes to regulations. I see what happened in the USA as a misfortune. Not everyone in Congress is unaware of what’s going on. But the FTX events also put them in a difficult position.

Bermuda is about to take the place of not only the USA, but also another offshore banking island group, the Bahamas. Especially the fact that FTX is headquartered here and the events have caused the Bahamas to tighten its regulatory rules. Tougher rules for stablecoin issuers, detailed disclosure requirements for crypto staking firms and services, and expanding the definition of digital assets are among these tougher rules.