Singapore-based Bitget said Friday it had registered with the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) as a money services business ahead of plans for a full-scale launch in the country.
A crypto derivatives platform that has primarily focused servicing Asia is looking to set up shop in the U.S.
Established in 2018, Bitget provides crypto trading services for retail and institutional investors. It started out as a spot exchange before pivoting into derivatives last summer, where it now averages around $1 billion a day in trading volume, according to a company spokesperson.
Registering as an MSB is the first step to Bitget operating as a legitimate exchange, anywhere in the U.S, the spokesperson said. The company still needs state-level licensing to conduct most operations.
According to its MSB registration documents, Bitget’s U.S. office is in Denver, Colorado.
Bitget has maintained a low profile in the West, but is «quite popular in the Chinese market,» which makes up nearly two-thirds of its 800,000-strong client base, according to the spokesperson. The exchange has now begun offering English-language services.
The company has also set up offices in South Korea and Japan, and last month received a license exemption from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to operate as a virtual currency service provider, without further regulatory approval, until the end of August.
Bitget is working on becoming a fully-licensed entity in Singapore. The exchange said it also has plans to apply for a permit to operate in the European Union.
Singapore’s Court of Appeals Rules Against Quoine Exchange in Landmark Crypto Case
Singapore’s Court of Appeals has ruled against digital currency exchange Quoine in a landmark case relating to a breach of contract that saw the platform unlawfully reverse seven trades.The Straits Times reported that the case marks the first of its kind in the country that regards a dispute involving cryptocurrency. The ruling concludes a legal battle that began almost three years ago.
Quoine, the parent company of Japanese trading platform Liquid, now faces settlement proceedings after the court rejected its appeal over the claim it had the right to cancel orders placed by market maker B2C2 on its platform based on the premise those transactions were a “mistake.”
Quoine had argued that the parties who interacted with B2C2’s trading software were acting under the false pretense that the trades were at fair market value and that B2C2 knew the trades were incorrectly priced.
In April 2017, B2C2 had placed seven trades in which it sold ether (ETH) at an exchange rate of 10 bitcoin (BTC) each, approximately 250 times higher than the market rate of about 0.04 BTC to 1 ETH at the time, according to court documents.
The appeal court’s reasoning focused on the question how the legal doctrine of «mistake» should be applied when contracts were drawn up and executed by computer systems with limited human involvement.
A day after the trades took place, where 309 ETH were exchanged for 3,092 BTC ($12 million at the time), Quoine noticed the abnormality and reset B2C2’s balances to their state before the seven trades, which prompted the lawsuit.
The Singapore International Commercial Court ruled in March 2019 that Quoine was liable for the “breach of contract and breach of trust” in reversing B2C2’s trades. Subsequently, the exchange filed for an appeal.
However, four of the five judges presiding on the appeal panel dismissed Quione’s argument, saying it is the programmer’s state of knowledge that is relevant in the context of digital agreements between a computer system and a participant on the platform.
The court said there was no mistake in the terms of the trading contract and even if there was a flaw, B2C2’s trading software was not aware of it when executing the orders, according to the report.
