Bitstamp Accelerates Southeast Asia Domination with Singapore Payment License Win
Bitstamp just bulldozed its way into Asia's crypto heartland—and regulators actually handed them the keys.
The 11-year-old exchange scored a Major Payment Institution (MPI) license from Singapore's MAS, clearing its path to offer digital payment token services in the city-state. No more operating under that pesky exemption status.
Why Singapore? Try 'gateway drug' for Southeast Asia's $1 trillion crypto market. The license lets Bitstamp tap institutional money flows while giving retail traders another playground—because clearly, the world needed one more place to ape into memecoins.
This comes 18 months after Bitstamp's parent company, NXMH, started whispering about Asian ambitions. Now they're shouting it from Marina Bay's rooftops—with actual regulatory paperwork to back it up.
Next stop? Probably more licenses. Because in crypto's regulatory Thunderdome, you either collect compliance trophies or watch from the sidelines while banks pretend they invented blockchain.
Bitstamp to connect markets globally
The presence of Bitstamp in Singapore aims to connect the Asia Pacific region to other regions, including the UK, EU, and the USA. Currently, crypto liquidity remains fragmented, mostly due to regional limitations.
Being fully licensed also means Bitstamp can offer reliable on-ramps and cashing out, with multiple currencies and access to banks.
The exchange carries close to $300M in daily trading volumes, bringing liquidity to both blue-chip pairs and trending meme tokens. The platform aims to build deeper liquidity, low-latency APIs, advanced trader tools, and custodial services.
The exchange will be one of the carriers of RLUSD, also serving to expand the reach of Ripple’s stablecoin.
Bitstamp builds local APAC team for regional expertise
Bitstamp will retain its experienced Asia Pacific team in Singapore, offering local expertise in markets, additional compliance and partnerships. The exchange’s team will offer more vetted services and assets after local meetings with platforms and projects.
The Asia Pacific region is for now one of the smaller crypto hubs, with project funding still lagging behind the EU. Bitstamp aims to raise the bar for crypto activity, improving access and reliability, as well as increased liquidity.
Robinhood, its parent company, is now focusing on products for the EU market, tracking the growing trend of tokenized shares. Robinhood will offer tokenized shares, though not necessarily representing real ownership of stocks.
The platform recently offered tokenized private equity for EU customers, though some projects protested that the tokens did not really represent company stock. Robinhood offered tokenized shares of private companies OpenAI and SpaceX, though for now limiting the activity to selected EU users.
Bitstamp will also be one of the venues to trade tokenized stocks, though availability may be limited by region. Multiple exchanges are now testing tokenized shares, though some are only limited to whitelisted wallets and cannot spread to the wider crypto ecosystem.
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