Germany’s second largest stock exchange, Boerse Stuttgart Group, has officially launched its crypto-trading app Bison, according to an official tweet today, Jan. 31. According to the app’s webpage, the software was developed by FinTech Sowa Labs — a subsidiary of Boerse Stuttgart Digital Ventures. The developers’ reported aim in making the app is to ease access to cryptocurrencies for investors that are accustomed to using traditional markets. Currently, the app enables free-of-charge trading in Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Ripple (XRP). Another subsidiary of the stock exchange, Blocknox, will act as custodian for users’ funds, using an escrow …

Following international police collaboration, a 36-year-old individual suspected of the theft of over $11 million in IOTA, as well as fraud and money laundering, has been arrested on Jan. 24. Europol published a statement detailing the investigation on the day of the arrest. The suspect was reportedly arrested by United Kingdom’s South East Regional Organised Crime Unit, together with the Hessen State Police in Germany, the UK’s National Crime Agency and Europol, following a search warrant carried out in Oxford, U.K. The operation that lead to the man’s arrest — and the seizure of several of his electronic devices — …

High-volume Coinbase Pro and Prime users in Europe and Asia can now fund their accounts via international SWIFT wire transfer from non-United States bank accounts, a post on the official Coinbase blog announces Jan. 22. The post also notes that “select Coinbase Prime customers globally will also have access to our US and European over-the-counter (OTC) trading desks and Coinbase Custody.” Coinbase Custody — which focuses on serving institutional customers and storing large amounts of cryptocurrencies — recently obtained approval to operate in the state of New York, after launching in July. According to the announcement, the OTC trading desk …

Major cryptocurrency exchange Binance is expanding to European markets with the launch of a new platform for fiat-to-cryptocurrency trading, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph on Jan. 16. According to the release, Binance is launching a new trading platform, dubbed Binance Jersey, designed for fiat-to-crypto trading of the euro (EUR) and British pound (GBP) with Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) within Europe and the United Kingdom. Trading on Binance Jersey — including such pairs as BTC/GBP, ETH/GBP, BTC/EUR and ETH/EUR — will become available for the exchange’s users after account verification in accordance with the Know Your Customer …

The number of crypto automated teller machines (ATMs) installed worldwide has surged past the 4,000 mark, data from industry statistics aggregator Coin ATM Radar indicates on Jan. 10. The current rate of growth is 4.9 new ATMs installed each day, according to Coin ATM Radar’s gauge scale — tipping into the highest speed class, despite persistently bearish market action. Crypto ATM installation speed. Source: coinatmradar.com Out of a total of 4167 crypto ATMs worldwide, 71.8 percent are located in North America — 56 percent in the United States and 15 percent in Canada — 23 percent are in Europe, and …

A member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) has warned that “the [cryptocurrency] bubble has already started to collapse,” Bloomberg reported Jan. 7. Speaking at a conference in Riga, Latvia, Ardo Hansson — also the governor of Estonia’s central bank — stated that digital currencies will end up as a “complete load of nonsense.” The official warned that “the bubble has already started to collapse and maybe we should just see how far this collapse goes, and what is left when we’ve reached a new kind of equilibrium.” Hansson added: “I think we will come back …

The Cabinet, the executive organ of the government of Ireland, has approved a bill that would give effect to the European Union (EU) Fifth Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Directive, the Irish Times reported Jan. 3. The directive — which came into force on July 9, 2018 — sets a new legal framework for European financial watchdogs to regulate digital currencies in order to protect against money laundering and terrorism financing. Specifically, the directive will extend the scope to crypto platforms and wallet providers, end the anonymity of bank and savings accounts, and improve information exchange among authorities. EU member states must …

Global blockchain platform Waves has raised $120 million in a private funding round for its new project called Vostok, according to an official blog post published Dec. 19. The Vostok project is a “universal blockchain solution” that combines two basic components — its own private blockchain platform, and the Vostok system integrator, a tool for developing and optimizing the platform. The Vostok blockchain is focused on the deployment of Waves technologies for commercial and government IT systems. The new product will reportedly help the Waves Platform to develop new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), and …

Spanish renewable energy company ACCIONA Energía is going to deploy blockchain to trace electricity generation, according to an announcement published Dec. 17. ACCIONA Energía is an international global renewable energy operator, that reportedly produces emission-free energy for over 6 million homes. The company is recognized as one of the largest renewable energy developers, with more than 9,000 MW owned and installed. ACCIONA started the project after it reached an agreement with FlexiDAO, a Barcelona-based startup that offers software tools to electric power companies for digital energy services. With this move, ACCIONA plans to allow its clients to check the provenance …

The CEO of Romania's largest crypto exchange Coinflux was reportedly arrested on a warrant from the United States for fraud, organized crime, and money laundering, local news outlet Mediafax reported Dec. 13. Coinflux has subsequently stopped all digital currency exchanges. Founded in 2015 in the Romanian city of Cluj, Coinflux is an online digital currency trading platform, with reportedly more than 200 million euro worth of Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and Ripple (XRP) in transactions. Vlad Nistor, the CEO and founder of Coinflux, was supposedly arrested on the territory of Romania upon the request of U.S. prosecutors. Nistor …

The European Parliament has called for measures to increase the adoption of blockchain technology in trade and administration with a provisional resolution published on Dec. 13. The resolution, dubbed “Blockchain: a forward-looking trade policy,” generally considers blockchain “as a private, permissioned distributed ledger technology (DLT)” but also admits that “various case studies and industries will derive different utility from a mixture of private/public, permissioned/permissionless blockchains.” The resolution notes that Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) in the EU are underutilized — only 67 percent of EU exporters and 90 percent of EU importers make use of the preferential tariffs — and that …

After months of monitoring and observing the “promising and challenging” potential of distributed ledger technology (DLT), the European Union (EU) is finally making a turn into the blockchain industry. How it all started Back in February 2018, the European Commission (EC) launched the EU Blockchain Observatory and Forum, aimed to support European cross-border engagement with the technology and its multiple stakeholders and to unite the economy around blockchain. Since its official launch, the newly established organization — supported by European Parliament — has released three thematic reports: the first one in July, dubbed “Blockchain Innovation in Europe”; the second one …