Mapping Binance’s globe-trotting empire

Since its founding in 2017, Binance has shifted its principal place of business around the world at least half a dozen times and has spun up subsidiaries in just as many countries.

However, Binance has made mapping its official headquarters incredibly difficult with the company denying for many years that it even had any.

Even three years into the company’s operations, founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) claimed that his company didn’t have a headquarters “because Bitcoin doesn’t have an office.”

After CZ repeatedly refused to name a primary place of business, US regulators began to complain and eventually escalated their inquiries into a criminal investigation. This ended with him pleading guilty to one criminal count and Binance itself pleading guilty to three criminal counts.

The reason for avoiding the question had become clear.

Now that CZ has served his prison sentence and subsequently received a presidential pardon for his crime, it’s illuminating to recall Binance’s globe-trotting endeavours as it built and maintained the world’s largest crypto exchange.

Protos has mapped Binance’s relocations below and has detailed its most significant primary locations.

China

Binance was founded in China in July 2017 and raised its first major source of capital in its $15 million initial coin offering of BNB.

The company owes its initial success to Chinese enthusiasm for digital assets and CZ’s experience at Shanghai-based OKCoin.

Although Binance began operations in Shanghai, it fled in September 2017 due to a sudden, serious, and ultimately short-lived government hostility toward it. 

It had a temporary nexus of operations in Hong Kong from late 2017 through early 2018 while it worked on transitioning to Japan.

Japan

After fleeing China with Binance’s headquarters and servers, the team set up shop in Japan, renting a small office in Tokyo in September 2017.

In March 2018, Japan’s Financial Services Agency sent Binance a warning about operating without proper licenses.

Although Binance quickly disbursed its primary operations across the globe to places like Taiwan, Malta, and elsewhere, it eventually returned to Japan by 2023 and acquired the locally licensed exchange Sakura Exchange BitCoin, which it renamed Binance Japan.

Malta

Also during spring 2018, Binance announced it was going to officially relocate its headquarters to Malta. However, the announcement was mostly a cover story.

At the time, Malta was attempting to brand itself as a particularly crypto-friendly jurisdiction. 

CZ met with the prime minister, Binance opened a Maltese bank account in June 2018, and the company relocated a few staff to work there briefly. 

However, by October 2019, it had abandoned any plans to establish a permanent presence in the country, and just a few months later, Malta was issuing warnings against the company’s unlicensed operations.

Malta would eventually contest that Binance ever had any meaningful operations in the country.