Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, or BaFin, has given crypto exchange Coinbase the green light to carry out crypto custody business in the country, the financial regulator announced Monday.
This will make the German entity of Coinbase the first company authorized to provide crypto custody services in Germany, according to BaFin. According to the announcement published today, because this is a new business model, BaFin has created an interdisciplinary, cross-divisional team that will oversee any issues related to the crypto custody business.
Last year, German regulators passed legislation that would allow companies to provide crypto custody services but required prior approval from BaFin.
Coinbase Germany’s approval comes two months after BaFin issued a warning about crypto exchange Binance’s stock tokens offering. The regulatory body rejected Binance’s request to remove the warning, stating that under German law, securities and other “investment products,” like tokenized stocks cannot be sold without approval.
