Genesis Global Trading has been granted the BitLicense designed by the Department of Financial Services. according to a press release from the 17th of May. The department was established in 2014 by New York state in order to craft a special license that aims to regulate cryptocurrencies. The agenda was finalized in 2015 and so far, only 5 platforms were able to acquire it. First was Circle, then XRP2, a Ripple subsidiary that sells only XRP. It was followed by Coinbase and bitFlyer and now Genesis was granted with one as well.

“New York continues to lead the nation in regulating the growing fintech industry,” said Financial Services Superintendent Vullo in the press release.

Genesis Trading is not a cryptocurrency exchange like many thought prior. It is a market maker, meaning that it caters mostly to institutional investors by offering round-the-clock trading in BTC, BCH, ETH, ETC, LTC, XRP and ZCash.

Not every major player was able to achieve the licensing though. Several platforms had to suspend trading in New York state, because they were not granted the approval such as Kraken or ShapeShift.

According to a lot of players in the industry the BitLicense was deemed as a failure as blockchain related projects and businesses have mostly avoided the state of New York since the approval.