A Market in the Making Episode 1

Providing the Best Experience for Retail Traders

June 20, 2020

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A Market in the Making is a webinar series featuring the numerous players working together to build the digital asset trading infrastructure. Hosted by Woorton, the leading European market maker, the series welcomes some of their key partners to discuss macro trends, user experience and joint efforts to build the digital asset market.

During the first episode, PBWS welcomed Charlie Meraud, CEO of Woorton and Giulia Mazzolini, Country Manager France at Bitpanda for an exclusive webinar. Bitpanda, the leading European investment platform,  is a key partner of Woorton and a longtime friend of the Paris Blockchain Week Summit.  

Charlie and Giulia discussed what makes a crypto exchange stand out from the crowd, the particularities of the French crypto exchange market, and more.  

Here’s a preview of some key takeaways: 

1. Market makers help exchanges to increase their liquidity and volume
2. Exchange users tend to be more price sensitive than broker users 
3. Exchanges need to stand out from the competition 
4. The French crypto market is evolving and attracting key players 
5. The challenge in the French market (and any market) is to show new users that crypto is legitimate and accessible to everyone

1. Market makers help exchanges to increase their liquidity and volume

Market makers are extremely important for an exchange, as they help to increase liquidity and volume.  More users means more volume, and the most efficient way to build up liquidity is via market makers.  According to Giulia, Bitpanda has seen a more positive effect on volume after working with Woorton for just 1 year.

2. Exchange users tend to be more price sensitive than broker users 

Users that are more price-sensitive tend to gravitate towards exchanges, making them less likely to use a broker, whereas broker users tend to be individuals who want to buy crypto assets, build a portfolio, and hold it for a long period of time.  Bitpanda noticed a need amongst their user base for an exchange platform, and decided to launch Bitpanda Pro. 

3. Exchanges need to stand out from the competition 

Given the huge number of competitors in the crypto exchange market, it can be a challenge to stand out.  Giulia talks about how Bitpanda has successfully done so by conforming to compliance regulations, making the platform easy to use, and hosting the platform in-house in order to resolve any technical issues as fast as possible.  

4. The French crypto market is evolving and attracting key players 

Charlie describes how French authorities were ahead of the game because they created regulatory frameworks for blockchain before the big players came to the country, and now because of that big players like Bitpanda are coming to France. Regulations have become a differentiating factor for exchanges, which makes France more attractive to them.

According to Giulia, France’s creation of a regulatory framework ahead of other countries “shows a willingness to progress and build something in some ways, it provides a framework for people to trust organizations like ourselves and other players that crypto is a legitimate industry and we are building regulations for it.”

5. The challenge in the French market (and any market) is to show new users that crypto is legitimate and accessible to everyone

Crypto adoption is rather low in France compared to other European countries, and the French market tends to associate investing with having huge amounts of capital and being older. However, they also tend to be very financially literate.  

At the same time, from a regulation standpoint it is easier for exchanges to launch in France, therefore the challenge is to show new users that cryptocurrencies are safe, legitimate and accessible.  

Register here for on-demand access to the webinar: 
https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/2NdpFpOv1T9LWreO9EfcQLEhWYHnT6a8hnBIrqINxEiQQryerUHGL2IupHcrSl_N

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