BitGo Grows Crypto Custody Options With New Swiss and Germany Entities

BitGo is expanding its institutional cryptocurrency storage service to Europe with the launch of two entities in Switzerland and Germany.

The Palo Alto, California-based firm said Monday the new custody options will allow clients to choose the jurisdiction that best suits their needs.

The Swiss entity, BitGo GmbH, is a member of the Financial Services Standards Association, overseen by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, as per the announcement. The new German entity, BitGo Deutschland GmbH, is already operational but not yet licensed. BitGo Deutschland "will apply for regulatory approval when the application window opens in November 2020," said the firm.

“We saw a lot of demand in Europe last year and it was clear that clients there needed to be able to work with European based firms that were regulated within specific jurisdictions,” said BitGo CEO Mike Belshe. “Switzerland and Germany have both become important European centers for digital assets as well as for forward-thinking regulatory frameworks. ... we have been impressed with the understanding and support of Swiss and German regulators.”

Launched as a U.S.-regulated trust company in 2018, the firm's claim of "strong" adoption by enterprises appears to be backed up by the numbers. Speaking at CoinDesk’s Invest: NYC conference in November, Belshe said the firm was conducting over 20 percent of all on-chain bitcoin transactions.

BitGo started allowing clients to earn interest on some funds in custody in October, adding staking support for the cryptocurrencies dash and algorand.