Bitfinex Derivatives claims its move to El Salvador aims to establish the country as a leading financial hub in Latin America.
In El Salvador, Bitfinex’s derivatives division has obtained a Digital Asset Service Providers (DASP) license to perform operations.
Bitfinex Derivatives announced in a statement released to Cointelegraph on January 7 that it will relocate from Seychelles to the Central American nation upon the confirmation of the DASP license.
“This critical transition is a defining moment for Bitfinex Derivatives and underscores El Salvador’s emergence as a global financial hub,” stated Paolo Ardoino, Bitfinex Derivatives’ chief technology officer.
The company commended El Salvador’s ongoing endeavors to create new crypto frameworks, asserting that this initiative was consistent with its overarching objectives to provide financial services in the region.
El Salvador has been implementing new digital asset regulations at a rapid pace in an effort to establish the country as a crypto center.
Bitfinex Securities obtained a local DASP license in April following the passage of the Digital Assets Securities Law by the country in January 2023.
The licensing regime of El Salvador enables companies to tokenize funds, debt, equity, and real estate, thereby simplifying the capital raising process for companies to issue tokens, finance investments and projects, and provide returns to investors.
The company launched a tokenized public offering of US Treasury bills (T-bills) on November 19, 2024, in accordance with the legal framework of El Salvador.
In July 2024, Bitfinex Securities was compelled to refund investors who had invested in a Hilton hotel tokenization initiative. The company was unable to raise the minimum $500,000 necessary to continue the venture.
The initiative, which was the first public offering of digital debt assets in El Salvador, only managed to secure $342,000 from investors before the first deadline, which is less than 5% of the $6.25 million it was aiming to raise.
The funds were allocated to the construction of the Hampton by Hilton hotel, which spans five floors and includes 80 rooms, a restaurant, a work area, a swimming pool, a gym, and a garden. The hotel’s total area is 4,500 square meters.
In order to acquire a portion of the hotel, investors were required to invest a minimum of $1,000 in the “HILSV” token on the Bitcoin layer-2 Liquid Network.
