Even if US regulators warm to crypto, we will remain in Bermuda, the head of a Bermudian-based crypto firm told The Royal Gazette.

Philippe Bekhazi, chief executive of XBTO, spoke only hours after newly appointed pro-crypto United States Securities and Exchange Commission Commissioner Hester Peirce said she was eager to resolve longstanding issues around crypto’s tax classification in America.

Mr Bekhazi initially moved his company to Bermuda in 2019, after battling an unfavourable crypto climate in New York.

XBTO was the second crypto firm to be licensed by the Bermuda Monetary Authority.

He said: “Regulatory things take a lot of time, so we are going to be here for the foreseeable future. When it comes to derivatives, tokenisation and securities, Bermuda is actually a great place to do this kind of thing.”

Mr Bekhazi said the US is still a land of many different regulators vying for attention, including the SEC, the Commodities Future Trading Commission and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

“It is quite complicated,” he said. “Here you deal with one regulator, the BMA. With something as complicated as crypto, you want simplicity. You want to go to one place to get answers. Otherwise, it just expands your regulatory process and becomes very costly.”

He called the Trump Administration “less aggressive” to crypto than the previous one.

“They seem to be less after enforcement,” he said. “The clarity is not there yet, but what is clear is that you can start innovating without ending up in jail, which is always a good thing.”

He was excited about the possible changes to US crypto regulation in America.

However, he said whether people in the digital finance industry get “pure clarity” the way they want it, remains to be seen.

Mr Bekhazi explained: “Some tokens that were traded in the US were deemed securities by the SEC, and otherwise by exchanges. So there was this constant fight between the players and the regulators. I think that should be cleared up very soon.”

In March, the SEC dropped its appeal against the company Ripple, ending a four-year fight, now considered one of the first shots fired over the bow in the war on crypto.