Gemini, a major New York-based exchange spearheaded by the Winklevoss brothers, is mulling over expanding across the Atlantic. The UK becomes the first market that they are going to target.
Yuri MolchanEyeing the UK market
The SEC rejection, which triggered another bullish trend back in July, didn’t impede Gemini’s future expansion plans. Back in August, the famous Winklevoss twins launched the Virtual Commodity Association (VCA) in cooperation with other cryptocurrency exchanges, which already has Bittrex and Bitstamp among its members. As U.Today reported earlier, they also rolled out a dollar-pegged stablecoin Gemini dollar (GUSD).
Now, Gemini is planning its foray into the UK market, two sources familiar with the process told Financial Times. They are currently working on getting regulatory approval from the UK watchdog. Apart from the UK, Gemini is exploring other potential markets around the globe for further expansion. However, they will not make haste since they want to sell cryptocurrencies only in a “compliant manner.”
A major crypto hub
As of now, there are around 400 exchanges in the world. It may come as a surprise that the majority of these exchanges are actually based in the UK, according to a Morgan Stanley report. At the same time,
the country is only responsible for one percent of the global trading volumes. The British Virgin Islands, despite its total population not exceeding 30,000, is actually the second biggest cryptocurrency market in the world, trailing the US by a tiny margin.
The UK, just like plenty of other countries, are definitely poised to become a major crypto hub, it is also experiencing regulatory scrutiny. Last week, UK lawmakers used a term “Wide West” to describe the current state of the cryptocurrency market. They claim that the cryptocurrency market needs more regulations to protect investors who deal with a highly volatile asset class. However, there is also a silver lining– this crackdown is actually meant to turn Britain into a global crypto hub for legitimately trading assets.
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Arman Shirinyan
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov