Bitstamp Is Bringing Its Services to Luxembourg

Bitstamp is the oldest digital currency exchange in the world. Not long ago, it announced it’s set to begin doing business in the European nation of Luxembourg, and it will soon offer its services to crypto traders in that region.

Bitstamp Is Cementing Itself in Luxembourg

Jean-Baptiste Graftieaux – CEO of Bitstamp – said in an interview:

We have a combination of engineers and product people who understand crypto or fintech. We also have experts in information security area and data protection. These are important for us to be best in class in terms of technology and cyber security. We also need strong customer support people. We have real human beings in our customer support instead of bots because customers want to work with real people.

When talking about why his company decided to settle on Luxembourg, the CEO mentioned:

When we looked around the European region for places to do business, the only country with the appetite to endorse this innovation was Luxembourg. It was still considered early days for cryptocurrencies, and there was virtually no regulatory framework. This meant that any company that wanted to become an established exchange had to go to each of the countries where it wanted to operate and help the government define regulations and licensing. Luxembourg is a small country, but very international and connected. It’s a good place to do business and engage with the local authorities in the sense that everyone knows each other. We worked closely with the government on how to regulate Bitstamp and to figure out what kind of license was required. In the end, we became authorized as a payment institution in Luxembourg.

The firm has endured quite a bit of trouble surrounding its licensing procedures. Graftieaux also discussed that, saying:

Regulations and licensing are important to our business because they boost our credibility in the market. We’re looking forward to the day when it’s easier to get licensed in countries around the world.

Making Sure All Is Correct

He also said that the company has worked harder to ensure audits go accordingly and that any fraudulent activity is picked up on. He stated:

You can look at a transaction, but you don’t see all the underlying data on the sender and recipient. What you see is that there has been a transaction of one or more bitcoins from one wallet to another or from one address to another, but what you don’t know today is the owner of the wallet or address. Nevertheless, with this address, what’s happening very regularly is that if there is a fraud or an offence committed with a bitcoin address, the law enforcement agencies will reach out to the different crypto players to see if they have clients associated to that specific address, and if so, to share that information.

Tags: bitstamp, crypto, luxembourg