According to a report from CoinDesk on January 2, Deep Tide TechFlow reports that Garanti BBVA Kripto, a Turkish crypto custody platform under Spain's second-largest bank BBVA, is set to open cryptocurrency trading services to the public. Abel Peña, Chief Sales Officer of the Spanish cryptocurrency exchange Bit2Me, revealed that with the EU MiCA legislation fully in effect as of December 30, over 50 European financial institutions have completed integration and are expected to roll out crypto services in the first quarter of 2025.
As the 43rd largest bank in the world, BBVA's total assets reached $857 billion in 2023. Garanti BBVA Kripto has started piloting cryptocurrency trading services as of January 2024. Peña stated that the enthusiasm for cryptocurrencies in the European banking sector is driven by three main factors: regulatory certainty brought by the MiCA legislation, the supportive stance on cryptocurrencies after Trump was elected U.S. President, and the tremendous success of the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF, which raised $35 billion within a year.