‘Thousands’ Leaving US Over Crypto Negativity: Blockchain Chief – ET CIO

Thousands of cryptocurrency industry developers have left the United States due to their negative attitude towards the sector, the head of one of the pioneering exchanges told an international forum on Thursday.

Despite a “crazy year” of scandal and failure in 2022 when the FTX exchange and a number of crypto dealers collapsed, London-based Blockchain.com chief executive Peter Smith told the Economic Forum of Qatar that there was now “real growth”. in the crypto community.

Black-smithwho said nearly a decade at the helm of Blockchain.com had left him with “no nerve endings,” recounted how other countries were taking advantage of the vacuum left by the United States where some regulators were “openly negative about about crypto”.

While some US lawmakers want to see rules for a cryptocurrency market, regulators have taken a hard line due to fears of money laundering and scams such as the FTX collapse. Former FTX chief Sam Bankman-Fried is due to stand trial in New York in October.

“It opened up opportunities for other countries,” Smith said.

“France, Portugal, UAE, Singapore, Hong Kong, London more and more and interestingly, have all been very excited to take over the baton that the United States has created,” he said. he declared.

Other countries had been “very constructive” on the regulations and had attracted “a huge amount of talent”.

“Thousands of incredibly talented people have moved from the United States to other jurisdictions over the past year,” Smith told the forum.

Prior to last year’s turmoil, Blockchain.com said it had over 31 million verified customers. Smith said there has since been growth especially in Nigeria, Ghana, Colombia, Argentina and Ukraine.

“We invest in Singapore, we invest heavily in Europe because those are the two safest environments we have,” Smith said.

“It comes at the expense of investing in America. The vast majority of our resources and capex investments are outside of the United States.”

Regulators around the world have expressed concern over the lack of oversight of digital currencies, but there has been a trend in various countries to regulate the market.

Singapore has proposed new regulations, and the 27-nation European Union last month approved the first comprehensive rules covering crypto assets such as bitcoin and ethereum and tokens whose value is secured using blockchain technology.

Last week, EU ministers agreed on measures to tackle tax evasion using cryptocurrencies.