By Early yesterday, the cryptocurrency exchange, Bitstamp received some great news when it was awarded with the state of New York’s currency license. The license issued to the exchange by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), thus allowing the firm to expand it’s operations to the US. This makes Bitstamp the 19th recipient to be awarded the BitLicense.
The issuance of the license means that the platform is now free to offer legally valid exchange services for Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRM) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) trading pairs to citizens of NYC.
The approval comes a lengthy four years after the crypto exchange put in its application for the license back in 2015, just after the NYDFS had passed the law.
CEO of Bitstamp, Nejc Kodric stated that the exchange was one of the first 22 applicants who filed for the license. Originally, the regulator only issued a small amount of BitLicenses, but have since started awarding them more frequently.
Kodric added:
“This year we are the [fifth] that was granted, so I guess the pace is picking up.”
In 2019 alone, Robinhood, Tagomi, LibertyX, and Cotton Vending have all been issued the license. Kodric cited that before the decision to award Bitstamp with its license, the platform had to discuss the various aspects of its operations with the NYDFS.
He added:
“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].”
As per a statement from the CEO, the approval process is similar in fashion to that of the European Standards so meeting the NYDFS criteria was a walk in the park for the platform.
The exchange already has a payment institution license in the EU which enables it to carry out its operations in all of the 28-member nations.
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