Boerse Stuttgart Digital Exchange (BSDEX) is now open to all investors based in Germany, almost 24 hours, seven days a week. The country’s first regulated trading venue for digital assets allows users to trade the Bitcoin-Euro pair, with further digital assets to be made available.
In a first stage, in September, the trading venue was only open to selected users, but now any user holding a German bank account who is at least eighteen years old, resident in Germany and a national of a country in the European Economic Area (EEA) is allowed to trade at the BSDEX. Traders are free to make deposits and withdrawals of tradable cryptocurrencies. blocknox GmbH, a subsidiary of Boerse Stuttgart Digital Ventures GmbH, takes care of the custody of the acquired cryptocurrencies on an escrow basis, free of charge for BSDEX users.
Orders are executed directly against each other according to fixed rules. Open order books provide information about existing orders and the current market situation. In addition, financial services provider EUWAX AG, a subsidiary of Boerse Stuttgart GmbH, increases liquidity by providing buying and selling prices. At BSDEX, there are transaction fees based on the type of order.
The trading venue is operated as a multilateral trading facility by Baden-Wuerttembergische Wertpapierboerse, which also is the operating company for the public stock exchange in Stuttgart. The technical operator of BSDEX is Boerse Stuttgart Digital Exchange GmbH, a joint venture of Boerse Stuttgart GmbH, Axel Springer and finanzen.net.
Boerse Stuttgart has been very active in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, having recently launched its very own crypto app, BISON, which offers trading in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Ripple (XRP) to around 60,000 active users. The app makes its money from the spread between the buying and selling prices displayed. There are no additional costs for users. EUWAX, another subsidiary of Boerse Stuttgart that is regulated in Germany as a financial services provider, is BISON’s trading partner and users are in fact buy and sell cryptocurrencies from and to EUWAX.
Last year, Sowa Labs conducted a survey that concluded that interest in the new asset class is surging, but there are quite a few limitations regarding ease of use, accessibility, and safety. “Our survey shows that existing arrangements and venues for crypto trading are not suitable for a mass audience”, CEO Spankowsky said at the time. “Not only is there a lack of user interfaces in the German language, but many trading platforms are also quite difficult to use”.
Registration and proof of identity are often very complex but the survey found that two-thirds of respondents wanted a registration process that would allow them to start trading within 24 hours. Error-prone trading processes and high fees charged for purchasing digital coins were also complaints shared by the traders surveyed.
