Gibraltar regulator warns against 4 digital currency trading platforms

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Gibraltar’s financial services watchdog has issued a warning against four digital currency trading platforms. The four have claimed to be regulated in Gibraltar, but the watchdog denied any association with them.

The Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC) issued the warnings against the four on June 8. The four are www.etrustcoin.com, www.findcurrency.org, www.arbitrageblock.com and www.arbitragecurrency.org.

They claim to be licensed by the GFSC, but the regulator made it clear that it hasn’t issued any licenses to the firms. It further stated that the firms have no pending application for authorization.

Of the four, only Arbitrageblock was accessible at press time. All the others are unavailable, proving the validity of the regulator’s warning against them. On its website, it claims to be “a fully licensed distributed ledger technology services provider.” It also purports to “develop innovative trading tools and provide services to both retail and institutional customers.”

The firm even displays GFSC’s logo on its website, allegedly without the regulator’s knowledge or consent. It also claims to be licensed in Estonia by the country’s Financial Intelligence Unit.

The company also claims to have been featured in several leading outlets, including MarketWatch and Seeking Alpha. However, none of these platforms have covered it.

“The GFSC strongly advises consumers to liaise with financial companies which are authorised by the GFSC and can be found on the GFSC’s Regulated Entities Register,” the watchdog advised.

Gibraltar, which is a British overseas territory, has taken various steps to protect its citizens against losing their investments in digital currencies. As CoinGeek reported, Gibraltar is currently working on laws that will tackle market manipulation in the blockchain sector. The Minister of Financial Services revealed in April that the new policies will be in place in a few months. The Minister expects the new law to prune the industry and leave only a few legitimate companies serving the people.

Most recently, Gibraltar’s government announced that it will consider all token sales as security offerings by default. Companies which don’t consider their tokens as securities must strive to prove to the government that theirs are utility tokens.