Gibraltar is set to become a global hub for cryptocurrency trading.
Gibraltar to become crypto hub?
The British Overseas Territory - which is located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula - could make history if regulators allow the proposal from blockchain firm Valereum to purchase the Gibraltar Stock Exchange (GSX).
Albert Isola, Gibraltar’s minister for digital, financial services and public utilities, told The Guardian newspaper: "If you wanted to do naughty things in crypto, you wouldn’t be in Gibraltar, because the firms are licensed and regulated, and they aren’t anywhere else in the world.
"I don’t understand how there can be any increased risk in Gibraltar, when you can go to any other European country today and run exactly the same business without being supervised, without being licensed, and without being regulated."
Richard Poulden, chairman of Valereum, believes the move will be a success and says running anti-money laundering checks on cryptocurrencies is "not vastly different from running it on currency from any other source".
He added: "And indeed, in some cases, because you can trace back through the blockchain and see exactly where that money has come from, it can actually be substantially easier than trying to find where a block of funds in a bank has come from."