This Crypto Firm Up and Moved to South Dakota

A California crypto firm has quietly shifted its headquarters to South Dakota just as a high-profile fight over taxing the state's richest residents gathers steam. BitGo, a digital asset infrastructure company once based in Palo Alto, now lists Sioux Falls as its home base, according to a December filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company, which is aiming for a valuation just under $2 billion in its Thursday IPO, has leased about 5,250 square feet of office space there through 2028, the Los Angeles Times reports.

BitGo, which also has offices or operations in San Francisco, New York, Canada, India, Germany, Singapore, South Korea, and Dubai, reported 566 full-time employees as of September. Its careers page shows a mix of remote and on-site roles, including positions in both California and South Dakota. The company plans to keep its Palo Alto office, which is almost twice the size of the Sioux Falls one, SFGate reports. The filing does not explain why BitGo changed its headquarters, but it comes as California debates the proposed "Billionaire Tax Act," which would impose a one-time 5% levy on residents with more than $1 billion in assets as of Jan. 1.

Backers, led by the Service Employees International Union–United Healthcare Workers West, say the measure would apply to roughly 200 billionaires and raise about $100 billion, largely for healthcare programs to counter President Trump's federal cuts. BitGo CEO Mike Belshe has emerged as a vocal critic, arguing on X that such a tax would also damage the state's startup ecosystem. "Who in their right mind would found a new business in California if California does this?" he wrote last month.

While some prominent tech figures, including Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, have moved parts of their operations out of California in recent months, supporters of the wealth tax dismiss the idea of a broad billionaire exodus as exaggerated. The initiative still needs sufficient signatures to qualify for the November ballot—and opposition efforts are, unsurprisingly, well-funded, with donations from billionaires including Peter Thiel, the New York Times reports. Another prominent opponent is Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has vowed to defeat the measure.