Guide to Crypto City in Seattle

Medical marijuana dispensaries in Seattle are happy to accept crypto, residents don’t have to file income tax returns, and the governor signed a bill to expand the state’s adoption of blockchain technology, but he doesn’t like crypto mining. Coinme and Bittrex are headquartered in the city, and several Binance servers are also located here, which is why CZ was indicted and sent to jail in the state. And this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to crypto in Seattle.

Quick Facts
City: Seattle
Country: United States
Population: 3.5 million
Founded: 1851
Most common language: English

Shortcut: Crypto Culture, Projects and Companies, Financial Infrastructure, Where to Use Crypto? Education, Controversies and Collapses, Famous People and Former Residents of the Seattle Metropolitan Area

Tell me about Seattle…

Washington state’s largest city is the gateway to the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

It is the location of Amazon’s headquarters and is famous for its liberal use of certain green plants. Sleepless nights in Seattle and ring, TV sitcoms too Fraser. The city is home to several professional sports teams, including the Mariners, Seahawks, and Kraken (hockey players, not a cryptocurrency exchange). In the 1990s, it was the spiritual home of grunge music.

Many tourists visit Seattle to see the original Starbucks store and the surrounding Pike Place Market, home to the famous gum wall. But most know the city for its distinctive skyline, which features the Space Needle, built for the 1962 World’s Fair. Like the nearby capital of Olympia, Seattle stands out for its network of ferries to islands in Puget Sound and its access to Vancouver, Canada, by highway and rail.

Rain and overcast skies often cloud Seattle’s image, but the area is considerably greener than many American cities. Native American influence can be seen in the names of many neighborhoods and neighborhoods. Avid fan of the young adult novel series twilight He visits often and is drawn to the nearby city of Forks.

Lake Washington separates the urban and downtown areas of Bellevue and Redmond, home to the headquarters of Nintendo of America and Microsoft. Located north on Interstate 5, it connects to Boeing’s manufacturing facility in nearby Everett. Like many American cities, Seattle struggles with a high cost of living and a large homeless population.

c in seattleLipto culture

Washington is one of the few states that does not require residents to file individual income tax returns. Urban areas tend to be left-leaning, but many conservatives are based in the eastern part of the state, scattered in cities like Seattle.

“Seattle is known for its modern left politics, but it also has a solid anarchist/classic libertarian bent,” said Brandon Black, organizer of the Seattle Bitcoin Meetup. “I think people are drawn to that cultural leaning and the casual/grunge social scene.”

Gov. Jay Inslee is not specifically for or against cryptocurrencies, but he signed a bill that expands adoption of blockchain technology in the state in 2022.

The governor cited “blockchain” as one of the issues impacting the state’s economy, but reportedly viewed cryptocurrency mining companies as unnecessary electricity users. The state Department of Financial Institutions has also issued warnings and cracked down on cryptocurrency companies that are operating illegally.

The Emerald City has been home to several small and mid-sized cryptocurrency and blockchain conferences, including ETH Seattle, BlockchainNW Summit, TF Labs’ Blockchain Conference, Blockchain Seattle Conference, and NFT Seattle.

Crypto projects and companies

Seattle has attracted innovators since before personal computers existed. The upscale department store Nordstrom has been headquartered in Seattle since 1901, William Boeing founded his eponymous aircraft (and now spacecraft) company in 1916, and Microsoft’s decision to move to the Pacific Northwest in 1979 helped make the city a major technology hub.

“Seattle has been associated with Bitcoin since the beginning,” Black said. “One of the earliest Bitcoin applications, Satoshi Dice, was developed here, and there was a thriving cash Bitcoin trade between Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver during the previous bull market.”

With the rise of cryptocurrencies and blockchain, major Silicon Valley-headquartered companies like Block, Gemini, and BitGo have local offices or employees in Seattle.

Cryptocurrency exchanges Coinme and Bittrex are headquartered in Seattle, and some of Binance’s servers are also located in the area. Unfortunately, former CEO Changpeng Zhao was indicted by the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington for this.

Last year, the Seattle team at cryptocurrency recovery firm Unciphered offered to crack a hard drive belonging to former Ripple CTO Stefan Thomas. The information to access the drive, which contained 7,002 BTC (worth hundreds of millions of dollars), was lost years ago, and only two attempts were made to access it before the data was permanently erased.

Other companies past and present based in the Emerald City include cryptocurrency startup Stably, analytics firm WeMeta Labs, cryptocurrency and cashback rewards company StormX, bitcoin mining company Luxor, cryptocurrency management company Protego, and the Omni Foundation, the company that powers the Omni Network.

Cryptocurrency Financial Infrastructure In Seattle

In May 2014, Coinme operated one of the first Bitcoin ATMs in the United States at the Spitfire Grill in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood. The restaurant has since closed, but dispensary company American Green launched its own medical marijuana vending machine in 2015, both of which accepted Bitcoin at a time when the new legal framework was being tested.

As of June 2024, Coinme lists over 400 locations in the Seattle metropolitan area where you can buy cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, including Coinstar machines and Moneygram.

Where can I spend cryptocurrency in Seattle?

Coinme lists several places where crypto users can exchange bitcoin for goods and services, including cafes, furniture stores, and moving companies. One of the more unique aspects of Seattle is the number of cannabis retailers that accept crypto in exchange for “greens.” Kush21 near SeaTac Airport is one such place, and ZaZZZ marijuana vending machines first launched in 2015 and have been accepting purchases with crypto.

education

The University of Washington, which has its main campus just north of downtown, has run a blockchain association since 2018, with hundreds of members.

Nicholas Carey, who became the co-founder of Blockchain.com, graduated from the University of Puget Sound (UPS) in nearby Tacoma and donated 14.5 BTC to the university, which was worth about $10,000 at the time. UPS was one of the first universities to accept donations in cryptocurrency.

Controversy and Collapse

In November 2023, Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to a felony count in the Western District of Washington for failing to maintain effective anti-money laundering regulations while serving as Binance’s CEO.

Zhao’s indictment and sentencing were both held in a Seattle court, where the judge sentenced the former Binance executive to four months in prison.

In March 2024, U.S. Justice Department officials charged Shane Donovan Moore, a semi-professional rugby player for the Westside Ronins, with fraud involving cryptocurrency mining equipment. Authorities alleged that he used his “rugby connections” to find investors.

In 2022, a former Coinbase Global product manager and his brother were arrested in Seattle on charges related to an insider trading scheme. Ishan and Nikhil Wahi allegedly made $1.5 million from illegal trading with prior knowledge of the tokens Coinbase would list. The brothers were later sentenced to 24 and 10 months in prison, respectively.

Seattle Metropolitan Area Notables and Former Residents

Microsoft co-founder and former CEO Bill GatesBest known for dancing at the Windows 95 launch event; cryptography author and educator Visai Boyapati; Founder of ShapeShift and creator of Satoshi Dice Eric Voorhees; Founding Member of Bitcoin Foundation Charlie ShremKnown for first explaining Bitcoin to the Winklevoss twins; Nicholas CareyCo-founder of Blockchain.com, Co-founder and Developer of Tornado Cash Roman Storm.

If you have any additions to this guide, please contact turner@cointelegraph.com.

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Turner Wright has been a freelance editor and writer for various publications for the past 10 years and can usually be found overseas. He is inspired by the combination of nerves, green tea and dark chocolate.

Follow the author @onceatraveler