The financial authority, BaFin, has granted Blocknox, a division of Boerse Stuttgart’s digital business, the final authorization to act as a crypto custodian. The company is allowed to provide institutional clients with an integrated brokerage, trading, and custody services thanks to this license. The second-largest stock market in Germany hopes banks, brokers, asset managers, and family offices will use its services.
Since Jan. 1, 2020, under Germany’s legal regulations, specific authorization has been required for the custody of crypto assets. Blocknox received a provisional designation as a supplier of regulated financial services after timely offering its application for this authorization. Matthias Voelkel, CEO of Boerse Stuttgart Group addressed the firm’s latest move and further said,
“This is the first time that an established market participant has been licensed to hold cryptocurrencies in custody without any acquisitions. This completes the unique infrastructure we offer: of all the traditional service providers operating in the European crypto market, we are now the only one-stop shop that’s fully regulated by BaFin in Germany for brokerage, trading, and custody of digital assets. For banks, brokers, asset managers, and family offices, this makes us the infrastructure partner of choice.”
Is Germany embracing Crypto?
While the U.S. has been in an unsure state about crypto, other nations are embracing it. Furthermore, as the European Union is working towards framing MiCA, Germany was seen making headway.
More recently, the German industry leader in securities processing, Deutsche WertpapierService Bank AG (dwpbank), which manages more than 5.3 million securities accounts, has announced the introduction of wpNex, a new firm that enables more than 1,200 linked banks to provide crypto trading to their retail clients. Additionally, now that Stuttgart has veered into crypto, other German institutions might follow suit.