Austrian crypto unicorn, Bitpanda has entered the United Kingdom with the acquisition of London-based Trustology, a regulated institutional cryptocurrency custodian wallet provider. The financial terms of the deal remain unknown.
Announced on Tuesday, the new owner will rebrand FCA-regulated Trustology to Bitpanda Custody. The Austrian company will basically streamline its European and new UK operations under the same branding. According to Bitpanda, the acquisition will make it one of the largest crypto custodians on a global scale.
“We are really excited to press the Bitpanda turbo button in its mission to make institutional crypto custody safer, faster and easier,” said Trustology’s Founder, Alex Batlin.
Trustology is one of the very few platforms that have fully registered as crypto asset companies with the UK financial market supervisor. However, the FCA pointed out that as Trustology is registered under the Money Laundering Regulations, the regulator cannot assess the fitness of the platform's services under the new ownership.
"The FCA can take steps to suspend or cancel the registration of a cryptoasset business if it is not satisfied the firm or its beneficial owner is fit and proper," the UK regulator stated.
Expanding Prime Brokerage Services
Established in 2014, Bitpanda has turned itself into one of the largest European digital asset exchanges. It closed a funding round last August, raising $263 million. Then, it was valued at $4.1 billion, almost quadrupling its valuation in merely five months.
The latest acquisition was the first of such deals inked by the crypto company after the massive funding round . In addition, it bolstered Bitpanda’s plans of expanding its crypto brokerage ecosystem into other areas. The company already launched commission-free stock trading last year and opened doors for white label B2B offerings.
Furthermore, bringing in Trustology’s services will enhance Bitpanda’s prime brokerage offerings under Bitpanda Pro.
“This is a great step for us as a company and especially for Bitpanda Pro,” said Joshua Barraclough, the CEO at Bitpanda.
“Bitpanda Custody is part of our strategy to offer a fully comprehensive set of services to our client base, and we can now combine an FCA registered, institutional-grade custody solution with a leading trade execution venue.”
