Centralized crypto exchanges play a huge part in the crypto trading ecosystem. However, the FTX collapse showcased how difficult it is to trust exchanges with user funds. Despite this, crypto trading platforms continue to believe that they can win back the community’s trust. Speaking to Cointelegraph, executives from crypto exchanges OKX, Gate.io and Bitpanda shared their insights on how trading platforms can recover from the effects of the FTX debacle. According to Dion Guillaume, an executive at Gate.io, transparency in terms of custody of user assets has become of vital importance. Guillaume told Cointelegraph that this also motivated their platform …

In an official blog post, Bitpanda announced that it has secured a crypto custody licence from the German financial authority, BaFin. Having obtained this licence, the Austrian-based crypto exchange can now legally market its services to residents of Germany. Bitpanda also claimed to be the first retail crypto exchange based out of Europe to have achieved this distinction. The collapse of the FTX crypto exchange has brought increased scrutiny to unregulated crypto exchanges that operate outside of a country’s jurisdiction. For this reason, many exchanges are seeking to gain licences in multiple countries to prove that they are legitimate. This …

Amid the recent volatility in the crypto market affecting investments and stock prices, many firms made significant staff cuts in the last month while others continued hiring. In June, major crypto exchange Gemini was among the first to reportedly cut 10% of its employees amid the bear market, saying conditions were “likely to persist for some time.” Coinbase and Crypto.com followed, announcing plans to reduce staff by 18% and 5%, respectively. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong cited the so-called crypto winter as part of the reason for the cuts, but also stated the firm had been growing “too quickly.” Market conditions …

Austrian crypto and stock trading platform Bitpanda joins the growing list of companies to announce a mass layoff as it aims to “get out of it financially healthy” amid an unforgiving bear market. Over the past several weeks, the bear market resulted in numerous catastrophic outcomes for many ecosystems such as TerraUSD Classic (USTC) and Abracadabra’s Magic Internet Money (MIM) de-pegging fiasco. Witnessing the crashes from a front-row seat, Bitpanda made the “tough decision” of cutting down its employee headcount to roughly 730 people. While the exact number of employees intimated to stop working for Bitpanda remains undisclosed, data from …

Bitpanda, an Austrian cryptocurrency exchange that was valued at $4.1 billion last summer, has received registration as a digital currency exchange and digital asset custody service provider in Spain. The company’s name appeared in the Bank of Spain’s registry for crypto enterprises on Thursday. The registry itself opened in October 2021. At the moment, it includes 15 companies. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Bitpanda’s representative specified that the company has been de-facto operating in the country since 2014. Spain marks the sixth European country in which the Vienna-based company has obtained a license. In December 2020, it registered with the Financial Markets …

The world’s most popular sport suffered an own goal as European clubs canceled their partnerships with Bitci, a Turkish crypto exchange. However, plenty of substitute crypto companies are on the bench, ready to bring crypto to the mainstream through soccer. Growing yet unclear cryptocurrency regulations in Turkey have reportedly hampered the company’s ability to make payments, leading to a lack of confidence among major soccer clubs. Portugal’s Sporting CP, the green-and-white-striped footballers famed for being the club where Cristiano Ronaldo cut his teeth, whereas Italian club Spezia, play in Italy’s Serie A, have also canceled their partnership with Bitci. The …

BitPanda, a Viena-based crypto exchange platform has made its maiden acquisition in the form of United Kingdom-based Trustology, a crypto custodian and wallet service provider for an undisclosed amount. BitPanda will rebrand the newly acquired fintech firm to BitPanda custody in a bid to start its native crypto custody services focused on institutional investors. The firm plans to begin its newly announced crypto custody services by taking custody of all its assets across its retail and institutional businesses. The firm claimed it would become the largest crypto custodian by doing so. The crypto platform’s first-ever acquisition comes after a series …

The crypto ecosystem picked yet another executive from traditional finance. Two months after raising $263 million, the Europe-based cryptocurrency trading platform Bitpanda announced that Joshua Barraclough, a former exec at JP Morgan, joined its ranks as the CEO of its fully-regulated digital asset exchange Bitpanda Pro. Before transitioning into the crypto world, Barraclough worked as the global head of the fintech team and then as the co-head of digital innovation at JP Morgan. Answering Cointelegraph’s questions about the transition, Barraclough said that leaving JP Morgan to join Bitpanda was an easy decision. “I have always been at the bleeding edge …

Austria-based cryptocurrency firm Bitpanda has closed a $170 million funding round to further the firm's international growth. The latest Series B funding round was led by Valar Ventures — a venture capital firm backed by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel — Bitpanda announced on Tuesday, and featured partners from Yuri Milner’s investment firm DST Global, which is known as a major investor in United States-based crypto-friendly stock trading app Robinhood. While DST is a new investor in Bitpanda, Valar previously led a $52 million Series A round in September 2020. According to Bitpanda, the new funding round has made the firm …

The Iota Foundation, the nonprofit organization behind Iota, Iota Tangle and Miota, announced it will be joining Austria’s newest Christian Doppler Laboratory, or CDL, as an industrial partner. The first of its kind, the laboratory is housed at the Vienna University of Technology and named the CDL Blockchain Technologies for the Internet of Things, or CDL-BOT. The laboratory was officially opened in a digital ceremony on Nov. 26 by Austrian Federal Minister for Digital and Economic Affairs Margarethe Schramböck. It will focus on research and development in public and private partnerships between institutions and businesses seeking to expand the implementation …

The crypto ecosystem tends to see regulations as “the big bad wolf.” In this narrative, government and regulators set rules that slow down innovation and damage growth for the crypto industry. That might have been the case a few years ago, but not anymore, according to BitPanda CEO Eric Demuth: “Depending on the regulation, it can be quite a good thing now that the industry and many companies have reached a size that matters.” Demuth was a keynote speaker during the Blockchain Economy 2020 conference in Istanbul, Turkey. He made time for a quick chat with Cointelegraph Turkey on Feb. …