Binance reportedly opening Beijing office
Binance has previously dispensed advice for Chinese regulators and now it may be easier to keep it coming.
Binance has a history of proactively moving with China's regulators.
Even its withdrawal from the Chinese market in 2017 was a somewhat proactive effort. Binance was registered in Hong Kong when China's cryptocurrency trading crackdown came down, and it blocked Chinese users without being explicitly told to.
"No one told us to shut down the exchange for Chinese users, but we just did it to show that we are cooperative," said Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao.
Now it's making its way back by opening up an office in Beijing, according to CoinDesk.
Proactivity
Binance aims to help governments monitor and shape the cryptocurrency industry, said Binance co-founder and chief marketing officer Yi He, to Bloomberg.
One prime example of this can be seen in Binance's Venus project, through which Binance is already partnered with multiple governments. Binance has described it as the "one belt one road version of Libra".
"One belt one road is a reference to one of China's key economic and strategic initiatives. Its supporters say it better connects the global economy, while critics say it's largely manifested as China buying up key infrastructure around the world and creating indebted strategic partners.
And Libra is Facebook's intended digital currency, its announcement immediately grabbing attention in China and directly sparking the impending launch of China's own national digital currency.
In the context of a "one belt one road version of Libra", it's worth noting that Venus was presented very differently in its Chinese and English language announcements, according to a translation provided on Twitter by prominent crypto-commentator Dovey Wan.
In the English language announcement, Venus was described as "an initiative to develop localized stablecoins and digital assets pegged to fiat currencies across the globe" and Binance invited governments to "collaborate with [it] to build a new open alliance and sustainable community".
By contrast, in the Chinese language Venus announcement, Binance spoke of its "dream to break the financial hegemony and reshape the world financial system" and it added an extensive new section of advice for regulators, in which it explained that "when facing the emerging technological revolution, countries that are first to embrace will have a first-mover advantage".
"First, we recommend that the central government establish the core strategic position of the blockchain industry and digital stable currency in the future financial system."
"Second, we recommend establishing a regulatory sandbox mechanism and pilot payment settlement services based on digital stable currency."
"Third, we recommend allowing private enterprises to issue digital stable coins, and develop cross-border payment settlement systems."
Binance delivered these recommendations in August 2019 with the announcement of Venus.
And now the first recommendation appears to have been adopted in late October 2019, with president Xi Jinping's declaration that blockchain should be a technological focal point at the moment.
And as far as anyone knows, the second recommendation is well underway, with China's digital currency expected to go live around 11 November.
But while the third recommendation has been widely picked up around the world, there appears to be little sign of it in China, whose warm attitude to blockchain still turns chilly where tokens are involved.
Perhaps an office in Beijing will let Binance make its case to regulators more frequently, more clearly and less publicly than before.
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Disclosure: The author holds BNB, BTC at the time of writing.
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