Currency.com, the Belarus-headquartered cryptocurrency exchange best known for its tokenized shares, has secured a coveted Gibraltar license. The award of a second license is a coup for the regulated exchange, further extending its reach and bolstering its credibility. The Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC) which awarded the distributed ledger technology license is known for its rigorous scrutiny of applicants.
Dubbed the world’s first regulated tokenized exchange, enables traders to swap crypto assets for commodities, shares, indices and forex. Popular markets include Tesla and Apple, whose shares can be purchased in tokenized form. Tokenized government bonds and corporate bonds are also available.
Currency.com CEO Jonathan Squires described the receipt of the Gibraltar license as bolstering the platform’s “commitment to expanding across the globe, offering a blockchain-backed, highly regulated and secure service designed to give customers the flexibility they’ve been looking for.”
Gibraltar Is Open for Blockchain Business
Gibraltar has demonstrated a willingness to embrace innovation, providing a testbed for emerging technologies, including blockchain. Its regulatory bodies permit businesses that meet its compliance standards to operate from the British Overseas Territory that lies at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, allowing them to expand into new markets. Having built a thriving industry based around online gambling, it was natural for Gibraltar to look favorably upon other digital businesses that operate ethically but within a tightly regulated environment, starting with blockchain.
More than 20 crypto companies have set up shop in Gibraltar, including wallets, exchanges, and custody providers. Receiving approval from regulators on the island is anything but easy, however. After receiving its own DLT license in May, derivatives exchange ZUBR the hoops it had to jump through. “We had to be comfortable with a lot of additional checks and outsourcing providers to make sure that the trading was transparent and that the market structure was solid so there’s no manipulation whatsoever,” recounted ZUBR’s chief legal officer Olga Okuneva.
Currency.com Eyes Global Expansion
Since launching in 2018, Currency.com has grown into a global powerhouse, setting up offices in London, Minsk and Gibraltar. The exchange enables users to buy and sell popular cryptocurrencies as well as trade traditional assets including popular shares and FX with tokens that mirror the value of the asset. Currency.com’s novel approach to tokenizing shares and commodities has since been emulated by DeFi projects seeking to deploy the same capability in a trustless setting.
The new license obtained by Currency.com will allow the company to use distributed ledger technology for storing or transmitting value in connection with the provision of dealer and custody services. It paves the way for the implementation of new products and services that utilize the underlying technology on which Bitcoin and the rest of the cryptoconomy was built.