The German based stock exchange Börse Stuttgart is planning to launch a crypto currency trading platform in January 2019. It's called Bison App and developed by Sowa Labs, a subsidiary of Börse Stuttgart. The service will go into beta testing next month and starts with support for bitcoin, litecoin, ethereum and XRP.
The move by the stock exchange of Stuttgart is considered quite significant. The exchange is the second largest exchange in Germany, and number nine in Europe. Bison App needs to be the European competitor of Robinhood, and it will provide fee-free trading to its users.
Bison App will have integrated KYC tools that will verify a person's identity within minutes. Traders will be able to use a 'crypto radar', which analyses over 250 thousand tweets to measure market sentiment. This will be rolled out gradually.
To some extend the move from the German exchange is similar to
Intercontinental Exchange introducing Bakkt. In both cases it's about existing financial institutions launching options to invest in crypto currencies. Bakkt's main selling point is the option to invest in bitcoin futures.
However, Bakkt will not be the first to launch bitcoin futures. Late last year CBOE launched their bitcoin futures amidst the crypto bull run of 2017. These did not made a huge impact on the market, especially not in the long run. Therefore it's a topic of discussion whether Bakkt will make an impact on the market.
What will make an impact on the market, is when people can actually benefit from using cryptocurrencies. Making it easier to do micro-payments across the world, using blockchain technology to make hotel bookings cheaper, get crypto on every street corner, and seeing cryptocurrencies in your most popular apps. That's when crypto and bitcoin will gain true value.
Posted from my blog: https://www.nederob.nl/2018/12/25/german-stock-exchange-to-launch-crypto-platform-in-january/