On Thursday, the Department of Financial Services (DFS) issued the first bitcoin exchange to itBit. The charter comes at the time when ex-bankers are looking digital currency as the next big thing in finance.

Charles Cascarilla, itBit's CEO, said one of the things they wanted was to have a great board. In January, they appointed many new board members including Sheila Bair, former chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, and Robert Herz, former head of the Financial Accounting Standards Board.

Bitcoin came in after Blythe Masters, JPMorgan Chase's ex-chief operating officer, left banking so that he can be the leader at Digital Asset Holdings, a company that uses bitcoin's technology to have smoother financial transactions.

Now the bitcoin has made a comeback, after Mt. Gox, another exchange, failed and customers were able to get their money back. This implosion led the DFS to come up with rules for 'BitLicense' for trading in the state. It was a measure that was going to prove against the largely unregulated world of digital currency trading.

"We have sought to move quickly but carefully to put in place rules of the road to protect consumers and provide greater regulatory certainty for virtual currency entrepreneurs", said DFS head Ben Lawsky.

Cascarilla affirmed that ItBit that has been in operation since last 2012 in Singapore has worked with DFS for more than a year so that it can have the charter.

The company said that it the first step towards taking on the US customers after receiving a banking trust charter from DFS and its superintendent, Benjamin M. Lawsky. In addition, itBit has won US$25 million in new financing.