World’s Fifth Largest Crypto Exchange Bitfinex Wants To Move To Switzerland

British Virgin Islands-based Bitfinex, the fifth largest crypto trading platform in the world in terms of trading volume, intends to relocate its business to Zug, Switzerland, Cointelegraph auf Deutsch reported Tuesday, March 27.

Jean Louis van der Velde, CEO at Bitfinex, confirmed the exchange’s plans to  the Swiss business newspaper Handelszeitung Tuesday. The Bitfinex leadership has reportedly met several times with the State Secretariat for International Finance SIF and also with the Federal Councilor Johann Schneider-Ammann, who heads the Economic Department of Switzerland.

"We are looking for a new domicile for Bitfinex and the parent company iFinex, where we want to merge the operations previously spread over several locations," said van der Velde der Blatt.

Settlement experts in Switzerland, who are familiar with the matter, say that Bitfinex will be incorporated as a public limited company on a move from the British Virgin Islands to Switzerland and will therefore be spun off from the previous parent company, iFinex. The current management team, headed by Dutchman van der Velde, plans to settle in Switzerland as well. Both the legal and financial departments, as well as the technical department would then operate from Switzerland in future.

Though the exchange is also considering London as a possible alternative, Switzerland is "on top of the list of jurisdictions," said van der Velde to the Handelszeitung, continuing that the exchange is ready to work with regulators to comply:

“We want to be the most transparent of all exchanges and meet the requirements of the Swiss regulator."

Zug has proved an attractive location for crypto companies other than Bitfinex. Internationally active Blockchain startups such as Xapo, ShapeShift, Monetas and Etherisc are based in Zug, as well as Ethereum's foundation and management.