BSDEX
BSDEX, the Börse Stuttgart Digital Exchange, is a German trading venue for crypto assets. Buy and sell orders meet through an open order book and are executed under the venue's trading rules. The order book shows which quantities other participants want to buy or sell and the prices they are prepared to accept.
BSDEX is used by institutional trading participants and eligible private investors living in Germany. The exchange provides shared trading rules and market surveillance for transactions between buyers and sellers. A separate custody company within Börse Stuttgart Group holds the crypto assets bought through the service.
An order book for crypto, run like a stock exchange
On a stock exchange, buy and sell orders from many participants meet in an order book, and the operator does not trade against them. BSDEX applies that model to crypto assets. BSDEX is a multilateral trading system that brings buyers and sellers of digital assets together through an open order book. The operator is Baden-Württembergische Wertpapierbörse GmbH; the technical operations sit with Boerse Stuttgart Digital Exchange GmbH, a subsidiary of Boerse Stuttgart Group.
Boerse Stuttgart Digital describes BSDEX as Europe's first regulated exchange (MTF) for trading digital assets. A crypto app works differently: in the group's own app BISON, EUWAX AG is the trading partner for every order. The order book answer in the knowledge hub explains how bids, asks and matching work.
Who can trade on BSDEX
Financial institutions with a BaFin license for proprietary trading, own-account business or financial commission business can connect directly; a company without such a license can apply and is assessed case by case (Boerse Stuttgart Digital). Banks and brokers that want to offer crypto to their own customers reach the venue through Boerse Stuttgart Digital, which bundles brokerage, exchange access and custody. DekaBank, for example, builds its crypto offer for savings bank customers on it, with trading, custody and the front end (Ledger Insights).
Private investors can open an account on their own if they are at least 18, live in Germany, hold a German bank account, are EU or EEA citizens, trade for personal purposes and are not US taxpayers (BSDEX FAQ). An account at BISON does not carry over: BISON users need a separate BSDEX account.
Coins, trading hours and fees
The FAQ for private customers lists ten crypto assets: bitcoin, bitcoin cash, cardano, chainlink, ether, litecoin, polkadot, XRP, solana and uniswap. The institutional side is wider; Boerse Stuttgart Digital names 70 tradable cryptocurrencies for its clients. Since the merger with tradias, the group's trading brand for banks and brokers adds more than 150 cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, tokenized financial assets among them, drawing on tradias' experience in trading and market making.
The venue is open almost around the clock but not 24/7. In winter trading opens at 01:30 CET and closes at 01:00 CET the next day, in summer at 02:30 and 02:00 CEST, which leaves a half-hour break each night. The fees follow exchange logic: a maker order that adds liquidity to the book costs 0.20 percent of the transaction volume, a taker order that executes against it 0.35 percent, each with a minimum of one euro cent. The FAQ lists deposits, withdrawals and custody as free of charge.
Custody and MiCAR
Coins bought on BSDEX are held on a fiduciary basis by Boerse Stuttgart Digital Custody GmbH. That company was the first German crypto provider with an EU-wide MiCAR license from BaFin, and its parent names Munich Re as the insurer of the crypto assets in custody. Boerse Stuttgart Digital reports more than 5 billion euros in assets in custody across its clients. The crypto custody page explains what fiduciary custody means for an investor if a provider fails, and CASP license covers the MiCA authorization that exchanges and custodians need.
The same custodian keeps coins for BISON and for bank clients of the group. The meinKrypto wallet from DZ BANK in the VR Banking App relies on it (DZ BANK, in German): it started with bitcoin, ether, litecoin and cardano, and EUWAX AG executes the orders. BISON reports that more than 1,050,000 users have registered for its service.
Upcoming crypto and digital asset events in Germany
BSDEX, crypto exchanges and Finance Loop
The largest crypto exchanges in Germany include Boerse Stuttgart Digital with BSDEX and BISON alongside Bitpanda, Coinbase Germany and Kraken. Finance Loop runs the Bitcoin for Investors seminar, and it partners with the Crypto Assets Conference in Frankfurt, hosted by Frankfurt School and Deutsche Börse Group.
Is BSDEX the same as BISON?
Both belong to Boerse Stuttgart Group and use the same custodian, but BSDEX is an exchange with an open order book, while in BISON EUWAX AG is the trading partner for each order. Customers need separate accounts to use these two different trading services.
Does BSDEX offer staking?
The BSDEX FAQ for private customers does not list staking. Boerse Stuttgart Digital names staking among its services for financial institutions after its merger with tradias. The staking answer explains how it works.
Who operates BSDEX?
Baden-Württembergische Wertpapierbörse GmbH is the operator of the trading facility. Boerse Stuttgart Digital Exchange GmbH, a subsidiary of Boerse Stuttgart Group, runs it technically, and Boerse Stuttgart Digital Custody GmbH holds the coins.
Is BSDEX regulated under MiCA?
BSDEX is a multilateral trading facility run by Baden-Württembergische Wertpapierbörse GmbH, and the coins traded on it sit with Boerse Stuttgart Digital Custody GmbH, which holds a MiCAR license from BaFin. MiCAR explains what that regulation requires of crypto service providers.
BSDEX and Finance Loop
Crypto exchanges and custody are topics of the Finance Loop Investment & Digital Assets track, and the rules behind them, MiCAR and MiFID II, belong to Risk & Compliance. Finance Loop connects the finance, IT and AI communities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with events in Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin and Hamburg.
Finance Loop is a professional network supporting the institutional use of emerging technologies in finance, such as AI, digital payments, cloud and blockchain solutions. Finance Loop helps its members build skills and personal networks in these fields: Investment & Digital Assets, Payments & Digital Money, Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty, and Risk & Compliance.