As if on cue, a group of businesses in Isle of Man are launching an incubator program for Bitcoin businesses. This immediately follows an announcement from financial authorities on their intent to regulate digital currency, an announcement that actually resonated well with Bitcoiners in expressing a highly upbeat outlook.
Participating businesses will be offering services for free or at a discount.
For those needing office space, Dixcart is offering set-up office space with significant discounts and flexible occupancy terms. Hamblin Employment group is offering office space free for two months. In addition, you pay only a flat £500 fee for junior to mid-level new hires, as opposed to the traditional 10-15% of salary.
Office space can be equipped with a blistering 1 Gbps internet service provided by Wi-Manx. Also available are datacenter colocation, cloud Hosting , telephone and voice solutions and enterprise e-mail. All their services can be paid with bitcoins.
KPMG offers two free hours of consulting on taxation and registration aspects of starting the business.
Isle of Man Post offers free postal and direct mail consulting and discounts on international mail campaigns.
In addition to the incubator program, the government also assists with up to 40% of setup costs. It is worth noting that many of the above benefits are available to startups in general, not just those focused on Bitcoin. More relevant is Counting House, a payment consultancy offering free consulting services on payment systems.
The island has become a tax haven and sought destination for startups, making it ripe for Bitcoin activity. In order to function and offer basic services though, the government has had to improvise ways of collecting revenue in the absence of sufficient taxes. One has been the much-contested toilet tax, which was petitioned against by thousands of island residents and recently contested with 18 appeals.
