Are Cryptocurrency Companies Based in the Bahamas Risky?

In April 2022, the FTX Cryptocurrency Exchange had just broken new ground in the Bahamas for a new headquarters facility.

- MIKE GAROFALO

They moved their headquarters from Hong Kong to Nassau because Sam BankmanFried, the CEO and Founder of FTX, didn’t like the stringent COVID-19 travel restrictions there and he worried about Hong Kong’s independence in the future.

FTX planned to build a new $60 million facility to house up to 1,000 employees, including a boutique hotel for visitors and special guests. Because of these developments and, in great measure, because of the less-restrictive government, many cryptocurrency companies based in Singapore and Hong Kong started to consider this move to the friendly waters of the Bahamas. The Office of the Prime Minister of the Bahamas created an important whitepaper called “The Future of Digital Assets in the Bahamas.” It was front and center on the Prime Minister’s website. It was an invitation to see what FTX saw in their future on that Caribbean Island.

HYPING THE BAHAMAS

By the end of April, an all-star international event took place. This conference was by invitation only – the crème of the crop of cryptocurrency would be there. Co-sponsored by FTX, the headliners were politicians including the Honorable Philip Davis, Prime Minister of the Bahamas, Former Prime Minister of Great Britain Tony Blair, former President Bill Clinton, former Trump Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, and a former Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC). Other notable celebrities were quarterback Tom Brady and his then-supermodel wife Gisele Bundchen (who both spoke), and Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary.