Liquid plans to expand to the United States

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Liquid, the Japanese firm that launched in 2014, is one of the largest cryptocurrency platforms in the world. Coingeek reported in April the the platform had reached unicorn status, which means that it achieved a valuation of over $1 billion, and was helped there by its Series C funding round. Liquid is now interested in expanding into the United States.

A new jointly-owned entity called Liquid USA will be created, thanks to Liquid partnering with Virtual Currency Partners (VCP). The platform will enter America through a holding company that was created in March 2019, and a press release made it clear that Liquid considered USA a “key growth market”.

VCP is a consortium of many fintech and crypto investors and entrepreneurs. The chairman of VCP, Barry Schiffman, has several decades of experience when it comes to investing in high-growth companies. Schiffman was the former executive managing director of JAFCO Ventures, a technology venture firm which eventually rebranded to Icon Ventures.

Schiffman made it clear that he believed that Liquid represented an impressive investment opportunity. He stated:

“After nearly a year of studying the cryptocurrency space and researching a number of players, we were extremely impressed with Liquid and the strong foundation it built for itself as Japan’s first FSA-approved cryptocurrency exchange and one of the top 5 cryptocurrency exchanges in the world.”

There are reports that Liquid is interested in regulatory approval in the United States and is hoping to onboard institutional clients by early 2020. The company seems to not be wasting any time, considering that it has already been approved by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and already has secured office space in both New York and Georgia.

Mike Kiyamori, the co-founder and CEO of Liquid, believes this is a milestone for the company, describing the US as one of the “world’s largest markets for cryptocurrency.” In addition, he apparently also personally knows Schiffman, who he describes as a “mentor of mine from my days at Globespan dating back to 2003.”