In 2017, OkCoin cryptocurrency exchange moved its headquarters from China and stopped supporting the yuan, ditching local customer service. The reason for such drastic measures was the next wave of bans against cryptocurrencies in the PRC.
Four years later, the Chinese government continued its active opposition to the crypto industry, and OKCoin completely disbanded all of its offices in the country.
However, the CEO of the exchange, Hong Fang, said that regulation is still a necessary thing in dealing with digital assets.
How to properly control cryptocurrencies?
Fang shared her thoughts on adopting the main cryptocurrency in different regions of the world in an interview with Decrypt . Here is her line.
Unsurprisingly, large countries are more conservative on this issue, while smaller states like El Salvador are proactive in adopting cryptocurrencies. We are more focused on compliance with the rules in the jurisdictions where we operate.
Recall that El Salvador became the first state in which Bitcoin was recognized as an official means of payment on a par with the dollar. Accordingly, you can pay with cryptocurrency there almost everywhere.
Earlier negative comments from the head of the SEC Gary Gensler caused panic in the crypto market, but the CEO of OkCoin is confident that the industry cannot do without proper regulation.
We believe that regulation is the first step towards actually building a bridge to a wider audience of investors. Thanks to him, the development of cryptocurrencies will not be limited only to those people who have been in this niche for a long time.
Fang added that she sympathizes with regulators who are struggling to keep up with the times, trying to keep up with the rapidly changing cryptosphere.
It’s too naive to ask regulators to know everything the top entrepreneurs are working on, and at the same time be able to develop sound policies that enable innovation.
However, she does not deny that American regulators still need to work on a clear definition of a set of rules for controlling the crypto industry in order to fulfill all their responsibilities. This step is important both for the protection of individual investors and for the harmonious development of large crypto companies.
Regulatory issues are now the focus of the top cryptocurrency exchanges. For example, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance hired former IRS employee Tigran Gambaryan, who previously was involved in major investigations into the Silk Road darknet store and the Mt.Gox exchange hack. Gambaryan will take the post of vice president of the company’s global intelligence and investigation department. In addition to him, Matthew Price will move from the ranks of ex-IRS agents to the post of senior investigative expert at Binance.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao announced the appointment of new high-ranking employees:
Binance’s investigative team now includes some of the world’s leading experts in the field. This level of expertise will place Binance at the forefront of regulatory compliance, increasing confidence in the exchange and the cryptocurrency ecosystem as a whole.
Gambaryan, after ten years at the IRS’s Cybercrime Investigation Department, investigated cases related to national security, terrorist financing, identity theft, tax evasion and bank secrecy violations. Here is his comment on the new post, published by Bloomberg :
I have led some of the most significant cyber and cryptocurrency investigations in history, including the Silk Road cases, BTC-e cases, and the Mt.Gox hack. I look forward to sharing my experience with the Binance team and strengthening the exchange’s position as an industry leader in regulatory compliance.
As you can see, Binance’s willingness to accept new staff with extensive experience in the above-mentioned area speaks of the exchange’s desire to «please» the majority of financial regulators. In this way, it demonstrates its readiness to comply with new requirements that may appear in the future.
We believe that regulation will really help popularize the cryptocurrency niche and spread digital assets. However, this requires clear norms that will be understandable to all representatives of the industry. Accordingly, for this, first of all, the peculiarities of cryptocurrencies must be understood by officials – and this takes time.
