Greetings from the Isle of Man, the Bitcoin Island. Can the European continent hear it?

     The Isle of Man, located off the northwest coast of England, is a strange place. There are sheep with four horns, cats without tails, and perfectly preserved Victorian steam locomotives. In addition, the island is probably best known for hosting the world's most dangerous motorcycle rally, the ManxTT.

     A 70-minute flight from London, you will be greeted by a silver Mercedes S-Class sedan. Imagine my surprise, I was greeted by Keith, a man in a grey suit and well-mannered, from Lady Chauffeurs, and Nula Perren, the owner of the company. You may not know the purpose of my trip, I came to the Isle of Man to look for Bitcoin.

     Lady Chauffeurs is one of the companies on the island that accepts digital currency, and other digital currency-related businesses are also growing rapidly. Bitcoin companies are usually concentrated in places with abundant capital, such as London, New York, and San Francisco. But the British government is trying to make the island a melting pot for the world's most advanced technology. There are currently 25 companies engaged in digital currency and blockchain technology located here, and this number is growing.

     As our Mercedes limousine drove toward Douglas, the capital of the Isle of Man, I saw sheep roaming the green hills. Perren explained that his company's airport pickup service is only for virtual currency entrepreneurs and Bitcoin enthusiasts who come to the island. Most of the newcomers are young programmers and technology experts from the United States, Canada and Brazil. In the past decade or so, some large companies from all over the world have also begun to move here, including the online poker company Rational Group, which owns PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker websites. Its existence has made the Isle of Man an online poker center like Las Vegas and Macau. Although most online gaming companies do not accept Bitcoin now, the digital currency is very popular among these technology companies on the island, and some people even exchange jobs with employees in startups to work for Bitcoin.

     Nick Williamson, an American dropout from Illinois Institute of Technology who is now a professional poker player, is one of these people.

     Williamson was fascinated by Bitcoin because he foresaw the revolutionary impact it would have on online poker, perhaps one day eliminating the need for a neutral party to adjudicate games. After moving to the Isle of Man, he immersed himself in Bitcoin's source code in his spare time and began writing his own blockchain protocol. In November 2014, he left PokerStars and joined a startup called Pythia, where he discovered that users could use software to create their own customized blockchains.

     To demonstrate the flexibility of the Pythia company protocol, Williamson found another partner: the Isle of Man government. The government is creating a virtual currency company registry on the island, and as part of the experiment, this registry will be stored on the blockchain using the Pythia protocol. This also makes the Isle of Man government the first government in the world to use the blockchain to store official data.

     "It's a testament to our commitment and the balance we've found between the importance of regulation and an open business model," said official Brian Donegan of the trial.

     Donegan saw the government wavering. He issued a few pamphlets explaining how to get involved in Bitcoin. Within a year, the government had introduced a regulatory framework and changed the Isle of Man’s parliament, Tynwald, which dates back a thousand years and is arguably the oldest functioning legal institution in the world.

     The government requires that virtual currency exchanges must comply with the island’s anti-money laundering laws and put consumer needs first. “This is done to prevent crime, and the interests of consumers are our top priority,” Donegan said.

     Eric Hollreiser, communications director at Rational Group, said he had seen government efforts to develop policies for online gaming about a decade ago, which regulated the entire online gaming landscape. Today, the government's efforts are happening with Bitcoin, which is why they decided to come to the island.

     In addition to regulatory policies, the Isle of Man has other attractions for fintech entrepreneurs. Fiber optics connect the Isle of Man to Ireland and the UK, which provides very good broadband. Electricity is also sufficient and stable. In addition, the island's tax policy is also very favorable: there is no need to pay corporate tax, capital gains tax, dividend tax, and personal tax is no more than 20%, which is half of the highest tax in the UK.

     While the Isle of Man government has shown rapid acceptance of digital currencies, the UK and other governments have repeatedly questioned its offshore tax avoidance characteristics. The Isle of Man, after three decades of sustained economic growth and a consistent attitude towards emerging technologies, is also looking for ways to diversify its economy. E-commerce (including online games) already accounts for 20% of the island's GDP.

     But don’t regulators realize that Bitcoin is essentially libertarian, taking money out of government control? That’s the question Charlie Woolnough, a native of the Isle of Man, hears most often. In 2014, he helped found bitcoin exchange CoinCorner and the Digital Currency Association, a local virtual currency group that represents its members in negotiations with governments and regulators.

     Woolnough says that submitting to regulation is the only way bitcoin will gain widespread acceptance. "Otherwise, bitcoin will just be a plaything of the underground," he says, referring to illegal websites run by anonymous service providers. Woolnough, now 39, worked in the funds industry in London for a decade before returning to the Isle of Man in 2013. Since returning, he has become a bitcoin authority, educating island residents about the currency. Retailers on the island began accepting bitcoin after Woolnough introduced them to CoinCorner.

     During the first three days on the island, I paid for many of my purchases with Bitcoin, including the airport pick-up service and cappuccino in the cafe . Woonough hopes that Bitcoin on the island will be regulated and that it will cooperate with mainstream banks in Western Europe. Like many European Bitcoin exchanges and digital currency service providers, CoinCorner has accounts in some Eastern European banks to give customers more banking options.

     Adrian Forbes grew up on the Isle of Man, but went to work in financial services in the UK and Ireland until 2013. Being small also has big advantages, he said: "You can easily meet senior government officials, and they will listen to your opinions, so things can be done efficiently."

     Unlike Forbes and Woolnough, Gareth Jenkins is a 35-year-old programmer and game developer who first came to the Isle of Man at the Crypto Valley Summit in 2014. He was on the island to increase publicity for his company, EVA Plexus, which has created a model for storing data on the bitcoin blockchain.

     Jenkins quickly fell in love with the island, returned home to England, packed his bags and moved to the island. With hippie-style bakeries, locally brewed beer and super-fast broadband speeds, the Isle of Man has everything Bitcoin needs.