Europe's Largest Exchange on Unlocking Europe's Retail Crypto Market - TOKEN2049 Singapore 2024

welcome everybody it's always difficult to have a slot just before lunch or after lunch or just before the drinks but I'm very happy to be here I feel privileged to be in Singapore to speak on this conference and together also with the bitv team we have some very good discussions on the conference outside the conference uh with liquidity providers market makers projects and this very useful and interesting to see and one of the things that pops up in all of those discussions is Europe because Europe is not that well known in Asia but I think it has massive opportunities and it's very attractive to many crypto players so I will also do a double click on some of the retail crypto Dynamics in Europe and what is very important to think about if you want to enter that market so we also notice that people are asking who's bit fafo and then we say well maybe you have not heard about bit FAO yet but this is the first time but certainly not the last time you hear about bit FAO so it was incorporated in 2018 we have really a retail focus in Europe 2 million customers we have processing in 2024 of what 140 billion 320 asset listed with only 300 employees so what will happen in next year we will double the number of verified users and we double indeed the ra The Exchange volume as well so I think many people do know the larger Global players some are sponsoring the Formula 1 some are sponsoring also this conference and sometimes it feels like really like a big brother and we it's phenomenal of what they have established right opx buybit Etc but if you double click also into the European market then it's good to see that if you look at the euro denominated crypto volumes then sometimes it feels like they're our little brother because we actually take more than 50% of the global of basically the Euro spot volume while the other players are to some extent marginal so this also stresses how big we are in Europe and what massive opportunities there are in Europe so in terms of Europe so we have conducted in independent research and then we see the spot volume in 2023 is like 8 trillion on spot volume of which 36% would be in the US 2 23% would be in Asia but 26 more than two Bill trillion is actually achieved into Europe so that's massive and this is only in 2023 so if you think about the opportunity in a bull cycle that might go up into 36 36 trillion of volume and if you talk about Europe people ask okay what's Europe so bav is located in the Netherlands in Amsterdam and people think well Netherlands I don't know that one well you know the Formula One driver Marx forer that's the other champion from the Netherlands so in Europe it's like 45 countries we have the European Union we have non-european Union so it's sced like 45 countries different languages a lot of Regulation if you double click on some of these retail crypto market dynamics let highlight double click on four of them it's the language component it's the behaviors and culture that also stems back from many many many years ago in Europe it's the regulatory Clarity or to some extent unclarity and it's also the local payment methods or local payment rails that are evidently imported into Europe on the language so we have many countries many states and despite that English is being globally used you do actually if you want to go to market you need to have a customer user interface a customer experience that really resonates with the people it's like also if you go to to France and you don't Master the French language you go on a first date and it's more than Google translate if you go Google translate and you do that on your first date I probably think you will not be successful maybe you end up within slap in your face it's the same also rolling out your platform into other countries so it's much more Beyond Google translate you really have to understand the language to make sure that people are willing to accept it that you build trust and people have native intuitive uh relation with your platform so Europe already comes down to an ancient history so a lot of behaviors and culture are very uh uh important in the different countries so historically you see that customers tend to have let's say an investment focus and they have a lower risk appetite and to some extent they're also a little bit of the older Generations so when I was young like 100 years ago then my parents also told me oh be conservative think about what to invance doing doing savings do your pension plan and that's still the case in many parts of Europe despite that the younger generation will also do much more trading but it's important to understand that for example if you want to go to Germany they really are thinking about investing thinking about the future you need to come up with saving plans Etc but also despite that we have the European Union we have a regulatory context the interpretation by each single country is still different also the political social context also Drive different behaviors in crypto acceptance if you take for example France well a lot of regulations on accounting or taxation it's not really science it's more like art and if you take Germany then okay if you take tax taxation in Germany is different than in the Netherlands so tax a in Germany for example if you buy crypto and you sell crypto within the year you have to pay taxes on it so you just need to understand all those different Dynamics in the European context the regulatory Clarity so nowadays it's each country can decide what would be the rules on the crypto you have a registration or you have a license so the ne it's a registration same with Italy in Belgium you don't need to do anything Germany is much more advanced they have a license that will change so as of January 2025 we have the Mika regulations so it will harmonize basically and unify a lot of these rules of playing crypto and user protection and I think it will drive significant institutional acceptance and adoption um but obviously it will also increase compliance needs uh in the in different uh countries local payment ra so if you want to be successful you need to make sure you have a proper on ramp and offramp of crypto so if you go to the Netherlands and you don't facilitate certain payment methods like ideal or you go to Germany you don't offer like PayPal or CR cards you will not be successful that's that's clear so on the next slide we'll do a deep live on the regulatory context so there will be an avalanche of EU regulation right and that one will also rule out who the winners will be but it's clear that bav will be one of the winners so in January 2025 mik will be implemented and it will be R roll out across the different states you need to have the mik license that your license to operate if you don't have it you're out of business I think there will be a significant Market consolidation uh you can already see in the past year that some local local players uh they cannot go with the Mika requirements the cost to comply they stop the business and sometimes they reach out to bit fa to take over the customer base um that will I think further accelerate like I mentioned Mika also allows for EU regularization and oversight once you have the pass the license you can passport it to every single other European country and that's really beneficial now you need to obtain a registration or a license in every single country and it delays to go to market once you have a license in the Netherlands Malta lania or Germany you can just use that license and go to market in every other country I think it will facilitate much more go to market strategies and competition for those that have a license offshore providers they will experience much more regulatory oversight but also actionable enforcement we have already seen seen in the past 12 months that some of these offshore exchanges they were actually banned out of certain countries and that I think will intensify not only from the regulatories but also from Market participants if there's not a Level Playing Field those Market participants will reach out to the regulators and ask for a Level Playing Field offerings like derivatives perpetuals they will also require a method license so does it mean that everybody will start asking or applying for the method license probably not I think it's probably like a partnership collaboration with partners that have such a license but I think the number of parties that are offering these services will become more limited stable coins uh well I think yesterday we also had a good speech also from Circle there are a number of stable coins where have the US US the EUR re Etc so starting in July 2024 some of these stable coins are they need to have a license a meik license in Europe otherwise you cannot issue and offer them to customers and that will have some impact so also on the pairs that we offer at bito we used U because they have a license tet doesn't have a license in Europe we'll see what the consequences of that one are I think it's also important for the projects that are here today and yesterday and tomorrow as of January it's also required for tokens coins if they want to be listed that they need to be accompanied with an white paper um so if you do it before January then you you don't need to have such a white paper so we can accelerate the listing so coming back to why Europe is a very interesting retail crypto Market uh let's have a discussion on site or off the site you can contact us so the crypto Market is growing rapidly in Europe and it's really a significant strong Market it's like 45 countries it's 750 million population it's like 10% of the population but they include like 50% of the global gross domestic product with with favo well we're really position as a market lead uh we have a proven track record we will get the licenses and basically we are very resilient in all Market circumstances we only don't live by Bulls but we can also survive in Bears the mik like what I explained that will definitely change the landscape and some players will significantly benefit for bit f for sure again I think it's good to iterate and Str that the European market besides Asian besides the US market it's massively attractive to Industry players it's a used retail focused uh area with sufficient uh margins to be realized so thank you all for your attention and you can always contact us thank you