Cryptocurrency exchange Bitvavo launches in Austria

The Dutch platform provides trading and custody for 200 crypto assets.

Dutch cryptocurrency exchange Bitvavo has received approval from the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) to offer cryptocurrency products and services in Austria. The company has 1.5 million customers across Europe. You can trade around 200 crypto assets on Bitvavo.

The company wants to score points with its easy-to-use platform and low trading fees, explains Mark Novelstein, CEO of Bitvavo: Transaction fees range between 0.03 and 0.25 percent. The most traded assets this year were Bitcoin (BTC), Ripple (XRP), Solana (SOL), Ethereum (ETH), and Cardano (ADA). In addition to asset trading and storage, stakes are also offered for some crypto assets: you can lock your coins in the network and, by drawing lots, you get the opportunity to add more blocks with transactions to the blockchain and get new coins in return. This is how consensus works on Ethereum, Cardano and Solana. However, Bitcoin works differently: it is based on “proof of work”: you have to use energy to be able to append new blocks to transactions and obtain a new bitcoin balance.

Bitvavo received approval in Italy last year and hopes to obtain a license from German financial regulator Bafin in 2024, which it applied for in May. According to its own information, the company is already the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the Benelux countries. (but rather)