Binance UK office one of 2,403 companies sharing ‘utility closet’ in Suffolk

The United Kingdom-registered address for an entity of one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, Binance, is nothing but a tiny building in Britain’s east that is shared by thousands of other companies.

On June 19, a

Cointelegraph contacted Binance for more information on the entity but did not immediately receive a response.

Tech firms shell games

Technology companies have employed such virtual “shell” addresses around the world and in the United States for years. These are used for a host of reasons – from providing privacy, obscuring patent filings or registering a business in a corporate tax haven.

Most notable is the Corporation Trust Company, the world’s largest registered agent service firm used by thousands of firms including well-known companies such as Google, Walmart, Coca-Cola and Apple. It operates out of a similarly nondescript brick building in Delaware.

This utterly nondescript building in Wilmington, Delaware is (probably) the most famous address in corporate law.

1209 North Orange Street.

It houses the Corporation Trust Center, the registered agent address of about three hundred thousand businesses. Including some giants. pic.twitter.com/HhdaUfKXCU

— Lucius Winslow (@Lucius_Winslow) November 15, 2020

The firm was used by Apple last November in an attempt to obscure the patent fillings for its recently announced Vision Pro headset and related operating system.

Another firm, Wyoming Corporate Services was uncovered in a 2011 Reuters exposé which was said to be a “brick house” in a “sleepy city” and home to 2,000 registered companies at the time.