From tax haven to cryptocurrency center of the world? The Valereum company negotiates the purchase of the Gibraltar Stock Exchange

From tax haven to cryptocurrency center of the world? The Valereum company negotiates the purchase of the Gibraltar - Gibraltar stock exchangeOne of the main obstacles to cryptocurrency funding is the separation from traditional financial markets. To operate with bitcoin or ether you need to turn to highly specialized services, without the regulation or investment benefits offered by current exchanges. But the Valereum company, one of the many that allows you to operate and invest in 'cryptos', he wants to solve this problem in a big way: to buy the Gibraltar Stock Exchange to be able to combine it with his blockchain business.

What is this operation for?

According to The Guardian, the deal is in the hands of Peñón's financial regulators, an 82-person office that must consider whether offering the cryptocurrency exchange to three people offers enough guarantees to take control of the territory's stock market. Valereum is an exchange that converts official money into cryptocurrencies and vice versa, a service similar to that of other large companies such as Coinbase.

A major concern is the risk that bitcoin transactions serve to mask money laundering or other illicit transactions. Richard Poulden, president of Valereum, is confident that the technology is sufficient to detect and expel potential criminals, as he does not believe that the controls required for this type of tool are so different from those that regular banks have been using for decades.

The main promise of this operation would be to offer investors the possibility to buy cryptocurrencies such as ether or litecoin, or invest in decentralized finance (DeFi) with these tokens, from the same platform with which one can buy Treasury bills of different countries or shares. of normal companies. A way to normalize cryptocurrencies as a form of investment and facilitate transactions for clients, increasing their liquidity and accessibility.

Any risks

The risk for Gibraltar, on the other hand, is that this purchase will eventually turn the colony's stock market into a new haven for pirates, thwarting its regulators' effort to get the EU to wipe Rock off the tax havens list. Gibraltar, in fact, is negotiating this year an agreement with Spain to get out of the 'black list' of the Treasury.

The carrot at the end of the journey would be the possibility that the merger is successful and the move would give more legitimacy to the cryptocurrency market, unlocking a flood of institutional money willing to invest in them as if they were normal financial products. The risk is that the United States will pull out its regulatory "stick" to prevent the global financial system from being infected with the "wild west" of "cryptocurrencies," in the words of SEC President Gary Gensler.

At the moment only Singapore has dared to take the step by offering official permission to the Bitget cryptocurrency exchange and investment house, which it was forced to withdraw shortly after due to problems with one of the 'tokens' operating there. Gibraltar could be next, before New York takes the first steps in this sector with the impetus of its new mayor, Eric Adams, who wants to transform the Big Apple into the "cryptocurrency capital of the world". The question is whether the first to jump into the pool will find an entire untapped sea, or will he realize that there is no water at the bottom.