Katherine Ross

Kraken received an EU e-money institution license from the Central Bank of Ireland as well as a virtual assets service provider registration from the Bank of Spain on Tuesday.



As part of the EMI license, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/kraken">Kraken</a> can now expand its EUR fiat services with European bank partners — both in the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/eu">European Union</a> and the European Economic Area.  



The VASP registration in Spain allows Kraken to offer both exchange and custodial wallet services to Spanish residents.&nbsp;



On Monday, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coinbase-bank-of-spain-vasp-crypto-exchange">Coinbase received VASP registration</a> from the Bank of Spain, allowing it to also offer custodial wallet and exchange services.&nbsp;



“We see a firm foundation for crypto in Europe, which has forward-looking regulation that enables us to grow with confidence. We are grateful for the constructive approach to regulating industry growth set by the Central Bank of Ireland and the Bank of Spain,” Curtis Ting, Kraken’s vice president of global operations, said in a statement emailed to Blockworks.



“In both <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ireland">Ireland</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/spain">Spain</a>, we are excited to become part of their vibrant local fintech sectors. We also look forward to continuing our investments in Europe more broadly.” 



In April, Kraken <a href="https://blog.kraken.com/news/kraken-secures-virtual-asset-service-provider-vasp-registration-in-ireland">announced</a> that its Irish subsidiary, Payward Europe Solutions Limited, registered as a VASP with the Central Bank of Ireland. A few months later, in August, crypto payment company <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/moonpay-ireland-vasp">MoonPay also announced its VASP registration</a> in Ireland.



As part of the announcement, Kraken’s Mark Jennings said, “Clear and effective regulation is essential for the mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies.”



Outside of its European expansion, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/kraken-nft-marketplace-launches">Kraken launched its NFT marketplace in June</a>. The exchange had initially launched a private beta version of the marketplace in October 2022.



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Kraken secures EMI license in Ireland, VASP registration in Spain

James Cirrone

MoonPay is now registered in Ireland as a virtual asset service provider, allowing the crypto payment company to offer its fiat-to-crypto “onramp” solution in the country.&nbsp;



MoonPay CEO and co-founder Ivan Soto-Wright told Blockworks that there’s a massive benefit to being approved in Ireland prior to MiCA, the European Union’s newest crypto law, coming into full force in 2024.&nbsp;



“We think having an Irish [virtual asset service provider] registration and eventually applying for authorization under MiCA to passport across the EU will be an immense competitive advantage,” Soto-Wright said in a statement shared with Blockworks.



The Central Bank of Ireland is responsible for approving virtual asset service providers (VASPs) and gave the greenlight to MoonPay on Tuesday, according to a press release.



Approved VASPs are permitted to offer five services to Irish customers, including the exchange between digital assets and fiat currencies, as well as enabling the swapping of digital assets for other digital assets.&nbsp;



Furthermore, VASPs in <a href="https://www.moonpay.com/newsroom/ireland">Ireland</a> can facilitate the transfer of crypto tokens between wallets, provide custody services and provide financial services related to token issuers, according to the central bank’s <a href="https://www.centralbank.ie/regulation/anti-money-laundering-and-countering-the-financing-of-terrorism/virtual-asset-service-providers">website</a>.&nbsp;



Soto-Wright told Blockworks that MoonPay is only approved to offer the first service: the exchange of digital assets and fiat currencies.



<a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/gemini">Gemini</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/coinbase">Coinbase</a> are some of the most high-profile crypto firms to be registered as VASPs in Ireland prior to MoonPay, each of them securing approval in July and December, respectively.



MoonPay was also <a href="https://www.moonpay.com/newsroom/financial-conduct-authority">granted</a> regulatory assent in the UK in December 2022. And in June of the same year, the company <a href="https://twitter.com/moonpay/status/1535321386893312003?lang=en">became</a> a VASP in Italy.



As the fraught US regulatory environment persists or worsens, there’s been a noticeable trend of crypto companies seeking to obtain regulatory approvals in Europe.



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/spain-crypto-com-registered">Crypto.com got registered in Spain</a> in June 2023. A little less than a month later, Societe Generale’s crypto subsidiary, SG-FORGE, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/societe-generale-secures-first-french-crypto-license">won the first crypto license in France</a>.



And most recently, of course, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/us-europe-spot-bitcoin-etf">Europe’s first spot bitcoin ETF went live</a> on Tuesday.



Meanwhile, the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-delays-bitcoin-etf-decision">US Securities and Exchange Commission just delayed the approval of a handful of bitcoin spot ETF applications</a>.



Updated Aug. 15, 2023 at 2:45 pm ET: Added comment from MoonPay CEO and co-founder Ivan Soto-Wright.



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MoonPay secures VASP registration in Ireland

Ripple looks to expand its services to the UK and Ireland following <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/judge-rules-ripple-xrp-not-security">its partial victory in a high profile case brought by the SEC</a>.



Ripple has applied for a crypto asset firm license with the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and now it&#8217;s going after a payment institution license in Ireland, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sendiyoung/?originalSubdomain=uk">Sendi Young</a> said to DL News in an <a href="https://www.dlnews.com/articles/people-culture/ripple-eu-boss-sendi-young-on-sec-win-and-replacing-swift/?utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=organic_social&amp;utm_campaign=">article</a> published Monday.



Young, Ripple’s European managing director, confirmed the information she provided to DL News in an early morning <a href="https://twitter.com/sendiyoung/status/1683776655393693696">tweet</a> on Tuesday. Blockworks reached out to Ripple for additional information about its activities in the UK and Ireland, but the company declined to comment.&nbsp;



The UK’s FCA approved <a href="https://twitter.com/Bitstamp/status/1668653416522952709?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1668653416522952709%7Ctwgr%5Eeb80268f3d8781b0fe8a34035f96d1c6d1eaf64b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcointelegraph.com%2Fnews%2Fbitstamp-fca-list-of-registered-crypto-firms">Bitstamp’s registration</a> as a crypto asset firm in June 2023. MoonPay, Wintermute Trading and eToro are among other notable firms that have <a href="https://register.fca.org.uk/s/search?predefined=CA">registered</a>.&nbsp;



In Ireland, payment institutions need to be approved by the country’s central bank, whose leader wasn’t too fond of “unbacked crypto” as recently as May.



Bank of Ireland Governor Gabriel Makhlouf said in a May blog <a href="https://www.centralbank.ie/news/article/blog-crypto-and-how-we-can-protect-the-consumer">post</a> that “the claimed benefits of ‘unbacked crypto’ should be treated with a large dose of skepticism. The purchase of such products can be similar to purchasing a lottery ticket: you might win but you probably won’t.”



This could perhaps present a hurdle to <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ripple">Ripple</a>, which is linked to the cryptocurrency <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/xrp">XRP</a>. Though it should be noted that Ripple says its payment solutions and XRP are separate from one another.&nbsp;



In fact, many banking institutions <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/partners/success/ripple/#:~:text=RippleNet%20is%20a%20decentralized%20global,and%20settlement%20of%20financial%20transactions.">use</a> RippleNet, an enterprise blockchain network, including Santander and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.



And Ripple isn’t just expanding in Europe. <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ripple-payments-singapore">Singapore allowed Ripple in June to begin offering crypto and payment services</a> in the southeast Asian city state.



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Ripple’s next stop: Service expansion in UK, Ireland

Sam Reynolds

<div id="highlights-block_619cb0d210858" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Binance has registered a fourth entity in Ireland, according to a corporate filing spotted by The Independent</li>
 <li>For some time it looked as if Binance would call Singapore home base, but relations have soured between the company and the Monetary Authority of Singapore</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



It looks as if Ireland will be the new home for Binance. The exchange, which until recently was famously decentralized, has registered a new entity in Ireland — first spotted by <a href="https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/cryptocurrency-exchange-binance-steps-up-plans-for-hq-in-ireland-41079314.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Independent</a>. 



Binance Exchange (Ie), the new entity, is believed to be poised to serve as the corporate “mothership” and not a technology licensing holding company or a regional subsidiary.&nbsp;



In an <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/binance-ceo-says-ireland-is-part-its-hq-plans-2021-10-07/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">interview with Retuers in October</a>, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said that the company was considering Ireland as a headquarters, along with France, according to an interview with French newspaper <a href="https://www.lesechos.fr/finance-marches/marches-financiers/binance-le-patron-de-la-plus-grande-plateforme-de-cryptos-mondiale-explique-sa-strategie-aux-echos-1362803" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Les Echos</a>, and another unnamed European city. 



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">&#8220;When we first started we wanted to embrace the decentralized principles, no headquarters, work all around the world, no borders,&#8221; he said to Reuters. &#8220;It&#8217;s very clear now, to run a centralized exchange, you need a centralized, legal entity structure behind it.&#8221;</blockquote>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Why not Singapore?</h3>



As Binance began its existence in Asia, it was thought that it would try to maintain its headquarters there. Given <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/hong-kong-and-singapore-take-different-approaches-to-regulating-digital-assets/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Singapore’s crypto-friendly</a> nature, the city-state would be a logical choice to host the exchange’s headquarters. In August, it announced that it had hired Singapore Exchange executive Richard Teng as CEO of Binance Asia Services Pte, a company it registered in Singapore in 2018.



“Singapore is widely considered to be the blue-chip destination for financial and regulatory security and oversight,” Michael Conn, CEO of Singapore-based Zilliqa Capital, told Blockworks in an earlier interview. “Setting up their business in Singapore will make it much easier for Binance to pursue a traditional equity raise, since Singapore is not seen as a tax haven or a place for shady dealings.”&nbsp;



However, Binance poisoned the well in early September by running afoul of the Monetary Authority of Singapore which alleged the exchange — a different entity entirely from its Binance.sg subsidiary —&nbsp; was in violation of the Payment Services Act for carrying on the business of providing payment services to, and soliciting such business from Singapore residents without an appropriate license.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">First a headquarters, then a sovereign wealth fund</h3>



Zhao’s vision for Binance includes an IPO and investment from the world’s largest institutional investors. But for that to happen, there needs to be a headquarters, which is something he’s also admitted.&nbsp;



In a recent interview with the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/006b727a-cc20-403e-ad53-6a23571e6c1c" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Financial Times</a>, Zhao has said Binance is in talks with sovereign wealth funds about investment in the exchange. 



Speaking with the paper, Zhao said that investment from these funds would improve the exchange’s “perception and relationships” with various regulators around the world.



“But it may also tie us to specific countries&#8230;which we want to be slightly careful with,” he also said.  Binance’s BNB token appears to be unaffected by the news and, at time of publication, is up 0.2% on the day according to <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/binance-coin" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CoinGecko</a>.

Binance Looks to Settle on Ireland as Global Headquarters

Macauley Peterson

<div id="highlights-block_616d5e37f72be" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>New five-year job push plans “to put Europeans at the heart of our plans for the company future”</li>
 <li>Facebook is facing severe legal challenges in the EU regarding violations of data privacy laws</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Over the summer, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg began pushing the company’s focus on the metaverse as <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/heres-why-one-company-ventured-into-the-metaverse/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a major narrative</a>. Now Facebook plans to hire 10,000 new staff in Europe to help build its metaversal future.



In <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2021/10/creating-jobs-europe-metaverse/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a blog post</a> published yesterday, Facebook executives defined the metaverse as “a new phase of interconnected virtual experiences using technologies like virtual and augmented reality.”



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">“​​The metaverse has the potential to help unlock access to new creative, social and economic opportunities. And Europeans will be shaping it right from the start.”</blockquote>



The company promises to find new recruits, over the next five years, for roles across software engineering, product, design and associated business functions. Many jobs are expected to be remote, which should make the initiative appeal to a wider variety of EU governments. Facebook’s EU headquarters is in Dublin, but they have offices in over a dozen European cities.



Echoing the blog post, Facebook’s Global Business Group Vice President, Nicola Mendelsohn, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-17/facebook-plan-to-create-10-000-jobs-in-eu-means-u-k-misses-out" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">told Bloomberg</a> in a video interview, “these 10,000 highly-skilled jobs are really, for us, going to put Europeans at the heart of our plans for the company future.”



Mendelsohn also asserted that no single company will own the metaverse. “It’s going to be like the internet — the key feature will be openness and interoperability,” she said. That sentiment stands in stark contrast to the reputation Facebook has had for years, as a centralized walled garden.



Mendelsohn also struck a note of cooperation with EU regulators. “A lot of regulation has been led by Europe, with things like <a href="https://gdpr.eu/what-is-gdpr/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">GDPR</a>, and we think that’s a good thing, that more will come.”



The Facebook announcement also praised the EU’s approach to protecting its citizens’ rights.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">“European policymakers are leading the way in helping to embed European values like free expression, privacy, transparency and the rights of individuals into the day-to-day workings of the internet.”</blockquote>



The company has faced multibillion-dollar lawsuits over violations of GDPR. A landmark ruling by the European Court of Justice in 2020 — <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2020/652073/EPRS_ATA(2020)652073_EN.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the Schrems II case</a> — stripped legal protections from Facebook when it transfers EU citizens&#8217; personal data to the United States, where it may be subject to the US surveillance apparatus.



That ruling and <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/data-protection/news/european-parliament-calls-for-infringement-procedure-against-ireland/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">political pressure</a> from the EU Parliament has put an intense spotlight on the action (or <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/07/02/dutch-court-will-hear-another-facebook-privacy-lawsuit/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">inaction</a>) of Ireland&#8217;s Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) when it comes to tech giants like Facebook and Google, both of which are headquartered in the country.



In April the DPC <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/ireland-to-probe-facebook-following-massive-data-leak/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">launched an investigation</a> into Facebook over a data leak of hundreds of millions of its users’ personal information. Facebook is facing the prospect of defending itself in court, on the one hand, while trying to court political allies through economic initiatives like this new jobs pledge, on the other.

Facebook Touts Jobs in EU to Build Metaverse

<div id="highlights-block_615f1754194a8" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Binance is no closer to declaring a home but has opened up shop in Ireland, according to local media reports</li>
 <li>Given Ireland’s competitive tax rates it’s an often-used hub for international business, and its regulators have taken an easy-going approach to crypto</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Binance has registered a number of companies in Ireland as the world’s largest digital assets continues to search for a <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/binance-continues-to-plant-seeds-for-singapore-move/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">place to call home</a>. 



According to a report from <a href="https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/global-crypto-trading-giant-binance-expands-irish-corporate-network-40920879.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Independent</a>, Binance has registered four companies in the country. One — Binance Ireland — appears to be established as a regional entity, while another, Binance APAC holdings, looks like a holding company for its Asia operations. Finally, Binance Technologies, is believed to be an entity to hold and license Binance’s IP as it’s in line with a similar structure in Singapore according to <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/binance-continues-to-plant-seeds-for-singapore-move/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">experts that have previously spoken to Blockworks</a>.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="871" height="375" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021-10-07-Binance.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-9076" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021-10-07-Binance.jpg?w=871 871w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021-10-07-Binance.jpg?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021-10-07-Binance.jpg?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021-10-07-Binance.jpg?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021-10-07-Binance.jpg?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021-10-07-Binance.jpg?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021-10-07-Binance.jpg?w=80 80w" sizes="(max-width: 871px) 100vw, 871px" /><figcaption>Source: <a href="https://core.cro.ie/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">core.cro.ie</a></figcaption></figure>



As regulators take a sterner approach to dealing with digital assets, and laissez-faire loving Binance, its CEO Changpeng Zhao, has <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/binance-ceo-signals-exchange-is-looking-for-permanent-home/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">promised that Binance</a> would find a permanent home as he said in a previous media interview that the company’s decentralized nature is something regulators often flag. In August, Zhao tweeted that the exchange was pivoting from “reactive compliance to proactive compliance.”



Many assumed this new home would be Singapore, given the city-state’s relatively <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/hong-kong-and-singapore-take-different-approaches-to-regulating-digital-assets/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">crypto-friendly regulator</a> and key hires the exchange has made in-country. However, that might not come to fruition as Binance <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/singapores-monetary-authority-places-binance-mothership-on-investor-alert-list/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">has found itself in a tussle</a> with the Monetary Authority of Singapore and has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/binance-stop-singapore-users-buying-or-trading-crypto-main-platform-2021-09-27/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">agreed to block access</a> to its main platform and direct them to a slimmed down version that only lists a handful of tokens. Binance has a similar approach in other regions where it wants to stay on the good side of regulators.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Why Ireland?</h3>



While Ireland isn’t often thought of as a crypto hub, legal experts have written before that the country is a relatively crypto-friendly jurisdiction with its lack of specific crypto regulation and low tax rates.&nbsp;



“There is no specific virtual currency regulation in Ireland, and regulators have yet to indicate the extent to which existing securities regulation will apply to virtual currencies,” <a href="https://thelawreviews.co.uk/title/the-virtual-currency-regulation-review/ireland" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">wrote Arthur Cox LLP</a>, a Dublin-based law firm, in a September 2021 paper reviewing digital asset laws in Ireland. The country has chosen to take a hands-off approach to virtual tokens such as ICOs, which might be a sigh of relief for Binance when determining if its BNB token is a security. 



Ireland’s <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-08/new-tax-regime-won-t-push-big-tech-companies-out-of-ireland" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">competitive tax rate</a>, and lack of taxation for non-Irish sourced income, likely also plays a role in Binance’s decision to set up a company on the island. Under Ireland’s “knowledge development box” scheme, IP held by an Irish company is only subject to a 6.25% tax rate. Binance’s BNB token appears to be unaffected by the news, and is up 0.5% on-day, according to <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/binance-coin" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CoinGecko.</a>



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