CEO of Coinbase: Without clear restrictions, crypto companies will grow “offshore.”

Brian Armstrong, CEO of American cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Worldwide Inc., said on Tuesday that the U.S. and Britain should make their regulations for the crypto industry considerably explicit to stop businesses from growing in “offshore havens.”

Armstrong stated at a conference organized by the industry group Innovate Finance that the bankruptcy of the Bahamas-based FTX exchange last year has emphasized the significance of large economies having clear crypto legislation.

Armstrong continued, “We need clarification on local legislation and regulation because else these firms will be set up in offshore havens” like the UK and the US.

The cryptocurrency market is currently mostly unregulated in the United States, even though certain significant economies, including the European Union, have developed customs regulations.

This year, U.S. authorities and law enforcement initiated a sweeping crackdown on cryptocurrency businesses to target unlawful offers and violations of regulations meant to deter criminal conduct.

Last month, there were reports that Coinbase was thinking about opening an office abroad.

A few days later, the business became the second cryptocurrency company in the US to get a Wells notice from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in connection with Coinbase’s listing of potentially unregistered securities throughout its range of digital asset goods and services.

The company thinks these possible enforcement actions would pertain to elements of the spot market, staking service Coinbase Earn, Coinbase Prime, and Coinbase Wallet, according to talks with the staff, Coinbase stated in a statement.

Nevertheless, the British finance ministry unveiled its first set of regulations for cryptocurrencies in February, and the country’s financial watchdog called for further regulations to “detoxify” the industry in March.

Armstrong stated in a tweet on Monday that Britain was “working rapidly on sensible crypto regulation,” and he was “eager to keep investing in the UK” without going into further detail.

Nonetheless, he expressed worry about British banks’ increasingly strict policies about consumers sending money to cryptocurrency exchanges to combat fraud.

To safeguard customers from what it termed “crypto-criminals,” prominent UK lender NatWest, for instance, implemented additional restrictions on client transfers to cryptocurrency exchanges in March.