Bermuda, Malta, Gibraltar, and Liechtenstein Lure Cryptocurrency Companies

Last year’s bitcoin price surge led to renewed interest in the cryptocurrency market, with investors and enthusiasts making haste to cash in. However, it also laid bare the potential for widespread abuse within the growing market.

Hacks, scams and suspicious price manipulation practices ran rampant, sending governments across the world into panic mode, as the U.S., Japanese and Chinese governments, among others, scrambled to reign in the new fad.

Digital currencies had opened up a new frontier and their multi-faceted nature and underpinning decentralized blockchain technology makes them hard to regulate. Naturally, many governments were ill-prepared.

The new challenge prompted countries such as the United States and China to enact legislative cryptocurrency policies aimed at curtailing unauthorized Initial Coin Offerings and money laundering, rather than stimulate the growth of the industry.

One of the first moves by the U.S. government was to warn investors of the inherent risks of…