By
Benjamin Njiri
April 23rd, 2024
Germany’s second-largest stock exchange Boerse Stuttgart has launched BSDEX which is a digital asset exchange currently offering Bitcoin-Euro (BTC/EUR) trading with more pairs to be added soon.
Innovative and top tier German stock exchange Boerse Stuttgart is the second largest in terms of trading volume and number of deals and has introduced a digital asset exchange called BSDEX, which goes live today. Currently, the platform offers Bitcoin spot trading.
The platform will be open to German residents this year and early next year the exchange will be open to the residents of the European Union. Immediately though only a few chosen traders are allowed to trade on the platform. Retail and institutional traders are both accepted on the platform.
This is the first digital exchange of its kind in Germany and it is fully regulated and will allow for digital assets to be fully traded against each other. In partnership with Solaris Bank, the exchange will be able to hold and process transactions for the exchange. BSDEX is only trading one pair for now which is the Bitcoin-Euro (BTC/EUR) however, Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and XRP to Euro trading pairs would be added later this year. Tokenization of other kinds of assets and other securities will begin sometime in 2020.
While many may doubt the validity and the regulatory status of the operations of the exchange BSDEX, the fact is that BSDEX is playing by all the required rules and such passes all the due diligence checks required for any securities exchange platform both in Germany and by extension most of the European Union.
BSDEX is fully covered and regulated by section 2, paragraph 12 of the German Banking Act (Kreditwesengesetz). If the authorities might have had any objections, they would have been clear by now. As a different trading facility operated by Baden-Wuerttembergische Wertpapierboerse GmbH which is the operating company for Boerse Stuttgart, BSDEX operates by similar rules and regulations that govern the public stock exchange.
According to sources, Oliver Hans, Managing Director at Baden-Wuerttembergische Wertpapierboerse GmbH since 2005 said:
“As the operating company, we regulate trading on BSDEX with its own market rules and monitor compliance with these rules. Of course, we also bring in our expertise in the field of exchange trading here.”
Boerse Stuttgart Digital Exchange GmbH is the technical operator of BSDEX. According to its CEO Dr. Dirk Sturz:
“The market in cryptocurrencies is worth billions, and more digital assets will emerge on the basis of blockchain. Our goal is to build up the leading European trading venue for those assets.”
Similarly, Peter Großkopf the Chief Technical Officer at Boerse Stuttgart Digital Exchange GmbH added:
“BSDEX will give retail and institutional investors direct access to digital assets and provide flexible and relatively low-cost trading. We believe blockchain is set to bring about significant changes in the financial industry, and we want to leverage its potential to create the trading venue of the future.”
Meanwhile, this follows a series of innovations that Boerse Stuttgart has been involved for the greater part of this year. In February this year, Boerse Stuttgart announced the launch of BISON which is its mobile app for cryptocurrency trading.
This allowed people to start on a preliminary basis to start over-the-counter trading as per cryptocurrencies. In May, the exchange introduced exchange-traded notes (ETNs) for both XRP and Litecoin (LTC). In addition to that in August, the exchange announced the launch of an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) Platform.
These all point to greater adoption by many governments, financial institutions and other entities of cryptocurrencies and their associated technologies. Again, it depends on which aspect of the crypto space that many are embracing.