Building Across Europe
As we continue to grow our existence in the UK and Europe, we have met with legislative in the UK, accepted a regional Centre of Excellence in Ireland, strengthened functioning in DACH with our first hire in Switzerland, and are expanding our footprint across further European markets.
Our mission is to encourage economic freedom, and we believe the best way to do that is by increasing crypto adoption in the world. That is why international growth is fundamentally mission-aligned and continues to be a company priority.
As part of our recently report two-pronged growth strategy, we are driving a united effort to strengthen our presence in Europe. This week, company CEO and Co-Founder, Brian Armstrong, was on the ground with other members of our administrative team in London and Dublin and to meet with policymakers, partners, and key reporters. Brian also arranged our first-ever “Live from London” companywide global all hands.
It is great to hear about the UK’s aspiration to become a leading global hub for crypto assets, and we are hearten by the thoughtful conversations with policymakers on how to turn that hope into a reality. The UK is nowadays the largest international market, we are thrilled by the momentum there as we look to grow our business.
Yesterday, the EU reached a landmark concurrence on the Markets in Crypto Assets Directive, “MiCA”, delivering the most comprehensive bureaucratic framework in the world and a single rule-book across 27 countries. This will provide important legal and bureaucratic certainty to the market, and raise quality across the industry. This is exciting — a harmonized single set of rules for the whole EU will enable us to invest, accelerate, and scale our growth efforts across the entire bloc.
Furthermore, the EU took a major step forward by reaching a practical deal for implementation of the Travel Rule to equipment financial crimes and the shift of illicit funds. The agreement takes a risk-based approach to confirmation requirements for crypto asset transfers to and from Self Hosted Wallets (SHWs).
The EU is setting measured bureaucratic standards for crypto assets, which should provide renewed momentum for other jurisdictions to reflect on their own approaches to directive and Travel Rule implementation.
During market downturns, the impulse can be to shy away from international expansion. We first entered the UK and EU during the bear market in 2015, a move that paid off remarkably during the bull run a few years from then. We’ll keep erection around the world, and doing everything we can to grow the cryptoeconomy.
We are on the ground already in the UK, Ireland, and Germany. Additionally, we are in the operation of expanding in France, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands.
In Switzerland, we are glad that Peter Hofmann is going to establish our in-market presence, within the Central European build-out that we recently embarked on, lead by DACH Regional Director Sascha Rangoonwala, based in our Germany office.
In Ireland, we accepted a regional Centre of Excellence (CoE) to drive business result by working closely with buttons and internal teams including PED, Abidance, Legal and Policy.
While markets will always be evaporative, we believe the future is bright — and we’re thrilled to keep building that future with our buyers and partners across the region.