Crypto exchange Bitvavo adds Nasdaq’s surveillance tool to detect market abuse

Dutch crypto exchange Bitvavo has partnered with Nasdaq to monitor the markets for signs of illegal activity.

EU-regulated cryptocurrency exchange Bitvavo said in a press release today, July 31, that it will use the Nasdaq Market Surveillance tool in an effort to detect and investigate “suspected market abuse.”

Under the agreement, the Amsterdam-headquartered crypto exchange plans to get trading insights and visualizations as well as “replay its order book” with a “consolidated audit trail” across multiple listed assets, and interrogate “suspicious activity through a wide range of alerts.” The exchange also plans to use the tool to create reports that it will share with relevant regulators.

Commenting on the partnership, Nasdaq’s head of regulatory strategy and innovation Tony Sio noted that the crypto market faces “significant challenges” if it wants to match the level of investor protection and market confidence of traditional markets. Sio also referenced local EU regulations, stating:

“Our market surveillance technology can play a powerful role enhancing the integrity of digital asset exchanges, helping to deliver many of the objectives of the incoming MiCA regulation.”

The partnership indeed evidently aims to address said challenges and align with the EU’s recently launched legislation, Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (also known as MiCA), which imposes “strict rules and requirements” on crypto exchanges for detecting and reporting market abuse, similar to standards for traditional financial markets, as the press release notes.

Founded in 2018 by Jelle de Boer and Tim Baardse, Bitvavo has regulatory approval from the Dutch central bank to operate digital asset services provider.

In December 2022, Bitvavo revealed that around €280 million of its funds were stuck at Digital Currency Group, the parent company of Grayscale, Foundry, and Lun, which found itself in hot water following the FTX collapse. The exchange subsequently indicated that it expects to recover at least 80% of the trapped funds from DCG following a settlement with the American crypto firm.