European Crypto Exchange Bitstamp Secures BitLicense To Expand Services In the U.S.

11. Apr 2019 Posted by Akolkar B on News

One of the Europe’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp is all set to step in the U.S. territory and expand its operations. Recently, Bitstamp has secured the BitLicense from the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) which gives the exchange the permission to offer crypto trading services to the local residents.

This is the 19th BitLicense awarded by NYDFS to a crypto exchange. Thus, like the other license holders, Bitstamp can now offer Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, XRP, and Bitcoin Cash trading pairs to its U.S. customers.

Bitstamp was one of the first crypto exchanges to have applied for the BitLicense back in 2015, said CEO Nejc Kodrič. BitLicense, which the NYDFS now calls as the “virtual currency license” is one of the toughest regulatory license to acquire for a crypto exchange.

In the initial years, BitLicense was awarded to only a handful of crypto exchanges. However, the agency is now opening up to grant this license to more players participating in this sector. Bitstamp is the fifth crypto exchange to receive the license from NFDYS this year.

Until now, in 2019, bitcoin ATM operators Cottonwood Vending and LibertyX, stock trading app Robinhood, and prime brokerage Tagomi are the ones to receive BitLicense.

CEO Nordic notes that his company Bitstamp has worked along with NYDFS to address several questions from the agency before securing the license. “There were questions all around how the matching engine works, how we store crypto, how we conduct audits. The license is a set of rules and procedures you have to follow on a daily basis, so once you do that you can receive a BitLicense.”

Furthermore, Nordič explains that the BitLicense standards are quite similar to that of the European standards. “The [BitLicense] is not that much different than our financial services license that we have in Europe,” he said. “We didn’t reinvent the wheel.”

Having secured the new license, the crypto trading platform is planning to further expand in other U.S. regions while providing them a range of crypto-related services.

Bitstamp is basically a crypto-to-fiat platform, however, it also offers crypto-to-crypto services to its customers.