Binance goes live with EUR and GBP fiat trades at Binance Jersey
A queue is already forming at the exchange's virtual doors.
Binance, the world's number one cryptocurrency exchange by volume, has gone live with fiat trades through Binance Jersey (Binance.je).
It currently trades BTC/GBP, BTC/EUR, ETH/GBP and ETH/EUR.
An island unto itself
Jersey is a small, nominally independent island off the coast of Britain. Binance Jersey is also nominally independent, as a separate entity to Binance, but one built by some of the same hands with the same technology.
"Binance selected Jersey for its highly developed digital infrastructure, robust regulatory framework, and world-class financial services sector," said Binance chief financial officer, Wei Zhou to CoinDesk.
"Jersey is an undisputed pioneer in blockchain development leveraged by this strong framework and talent pool. Binance Jersey hopes to increase Jersey’s competitive advantage in banking from other jurisdictions competing for cryptocurrency-related business as the island’s cryptocurrency regulation allows," he said.
The launch of Binance Jersey comes following the exchange working hand in hand with Jersey's government-backed economic development agency, Digital Jersey.
"To have such a well-respected platform in Jersey, backed by the island’s trusted regulatory framework, sets us up to become a key jurisdiction in this sector," said Digital Jersey CEO Tony Moretta.
Brentry
The launch is also designed to put a new stepping stone between the euro and pound, and to create cryptocurrency on and off ramps for both, Zhou said.
"Expanding the cryptocurrency exchange markets with fiat currencies in the European region is opening new economic opportunities for Europeans as well as freedom from looming Brexit uncertainty where the pound and euro are also in concern," he noted. "Through Binance Jersey, we want to help bridge the crypto-fiat channel for Europe and the U.K. as part of our global expansion to support broader cryptocurrency adoption."
It's taken off with a bang, Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao noted on Twitter, and users are already queuing up to get verified.
Disclosure: At the time of writing the author holds ETH
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