The world’s biggest cryptocurrency trading platform, Binance, has cemented its corporate presence in Ireland as a crackdown by China on cryptocurrency trading and mining creates significant additional uncertainty.
he group, which last year registered its first Binance firm in Ireland – Binance (Ireland) Holdings – has registered three more firms here within the past 10 days.
Binance (APAC) Holdings, Binance (Services) Holdings and Binance Technologies were all formally established here on September 27.
They all list Binance founder and chief executive Changpeng Zhao as a director. He signed registration documentation on September 10 and September 13.
On September 27, Binance said that people in Singapore would no longer be able to trade cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin on its main platform, Binance.com.
That decision came just weeks after the Monetary Authority of Singapore told Binance to stop providing payment services to residents in the city state.
The authority said Binance.com may be in breach of regulations by providing payment services without a licence.
However, a separate but connected firm, Binance Asia Services, is exempted from holding a licence in Singapore.
The new Binance companies that have been set up in Ireland have been established on the company’s behalf by Irish law firm Mason Hayes & Curran.
The company documents list the place of business for the Binance firms as an accountancy office above an athletics shop at a small, nondescript building on Dublin’s
southside.
Binance (Ireland) Holdings, which was established last year, currently lists Mr Zhao’s residential address as being in Malta and confirms that he is a Canadian citizen.
A Binance spokesman was unable to provide additional details on the new units before going to print.
Binance’s spot currency trading volumes hit $789bn (€680bn) last month compared to $454bn in July, news agency Reuters reported this week. It based the data on figures compiled for Reuters by UK firm CryptoCompare.
The People’s Bank of China – the country’s central bank – has banned the circulation of cryptocurrencies in the country and ordered overseas cryptocurrency exchanges not to provide any services to investors in China.
In August, Binance said it would be terminating its futures and derivative products across Europe. It has also restricted product offerings in a number of other countries.
“Binance welcomes developments to our industry’s regulatory framework as they pose opportunities for the market players to have greater collaboration with the regulators,” it said as it curtailed activities in Norway recently.
“We are committed to working constructively in policy-making that seeks to benefit every user.”
The Central Bank of Ireland has issued a number of warnings to consumers about investing in cryptocurrencies.
