BTSE, a crypto spot and futures exchange, has moved its business from Dubai to the British Virgin Islands, citing lack of proper regulation in its former base

Announced on Wednesday, the company has established BTSE Holdings Limited in the British Virgin Islands last October and is gradually transitioning all its business to the Caribbean islands.

“We have been gradually transitioning to the British Virgin Islands and continue to monitor the global regulatory landscape,” the exchange noted. “As a cryptocurrency exchange, we continue to be agile and responsive to regulatory updates and evolve together with the global legal landscape.”

The exchange detailed that it chose Dubai as its headquarters, given the UAE lawmakers’ commitment to bringing proper crypto regulations.

“We were further informed that the Commercial Brokers and Payment Services Provider licenses would suffice in the interim. By September 2018, we had finalized the paperwork for two entities and proceeded to integrate banking solutions to power our fiat on- and off-ramps,” the official announcement added.

Quest for a crypto heaven

Now it’s pointing out the failure of Dubai lawmakers’ inability for concrete progress in bringing crypto regulations and decided that “continuing BTSE’s operations under the existing framework would not be feasible in the long term.”

Similar to Dubai, BTSE also pointed out the lapse in bringing frameworks in other jurisdictions, specifically Malta, which once promoted itself as crypto heaven. Notably, major crypto exchanges, including Binance and OKEx, are registered in Malta.

Meanwhile, crypto derivatives exchange Deribit also decided to move its base from the Netherlands to much-friendly Panama and will begin operations under the newly registered entity from February 10. Per the company, the recently enforced the Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (5AMLD) is “very strict” and will compel crypto exchanges to gather a massive amount of data from its customers.