One Trading receives Dutch license, onshores EU crypto futures

The Netherlands-based digital asset exchange One Trading has received an Organized Trading Facility license from the Dutch Financial Markets Authority (AFM). With that license, the exchange will be able to introduce several new financial products to Europe, including onshore crypto futures trading.

In addition, One Trading will become the only perpetual futures trading platform in the European Union and the first cash-settled perpetuals platform in Europe, including the United Kingdom. One Trading will also be the first regulated European derivatives exchange open to retail clients.

Blockchain lets One Trading offer better tradfi services

Onshoring trading means bringing it under local regulation. One Trading CEO Joshua Barraclough said in a statement:

“The long-term vision of the company is to enable all customer types to go long or short on any asset, use any asset as collateral, settle everything instantly, and perpetually roll contracts.”

“With this licence, we are well positioned to introduce new regulated products and offer institutional-grade solutions to all customer types starting with BTC and ETH products where no onshore EU regulated venue currently exists,” he continued.

Thanks to distributed ledger technology, One Trading implements derivatives trades around the clock in real-time without external clearing. It was also the first EU platform to enable the use of crypto assets as collateral for trading regulated financial instruments.

Peter Thiel’s fingerprints all over it

One Trading was known as Bitpanda Pro, set up by Austria-based Bitpanda in 2019. It was spun off in June 2023 after a Series A funding round led by Valar Ventures raised 30 million euros ($32.5 million).

Valar Ventures was co-founded by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. It also backed Bitpanda in three funding rounds. Other Thiel-backed crypto enterprises include the Vauld exchange, BitDAO (now known as Mantle) and Praxis, which strives to build a cryptocurrency-run city somewhere in the Mediterranean region. Praxis currently has 2,228 citizens and 146 registered companies.

In January, Bitpanda created Bitpanda Wealth for European institutions and high-net-worth individuals.