In my earlier post, I have argued that a contract for "the provision of services" within the meaning of Article 7(1)(b) of the Brussels I-bis Regulation should be interpreted as covering both a contract for the exchange of cryptocurrency units and traditional currencies and a contract for the storage of cryptocurrency units. On that reading, the Regulation would give jurisdiction to the courts for the place of provision of the services (For the text of Article 7(1), see my earlier post). This post will consider where that place is in the context of such contracts.
The first thing to note is that this question will not give rise to the same difficulty of localisation as the choice of law for proprietary issues (as to the latter, see my earlier post). This is because the provision of services can be localised in the physical world even if the services deal with cryptocurrencies. Thus, the exchange of cryptocurrency units with traditional currencies does not take place solely on the blockchain. It also involves a transfer of the traditional currency between the account of the user and that of the service provider. Indeed, all necessary operations will have to be conducted at physical location(s). The storage of cryptocurrency units, too, will necessitate crucial operations at physical location(s) such as the safe keeping of the private keys in cold storage.
In the language of Article 7(1)(b), the place of provision of the services is the place "where, under the contract, the services were provided or should have been provided." Interpreting the equivalent phrase for contracts for the sale of goods, the CJEU held that it should be understood to refer to the actual place of performance only where it was impossible to determine it on the basis of the contractual terms (Electrosteel Europe v Edil Centro (Case C-87/10) (2011)). It is hard to see why the same interpretation should not be applied to contracts for the provision of services. In the context of a contract for the exchange of cryptocurrency units with traditional currencies and a contract for the storage of cryptocurrency units, the physical location effecting the necessary operations described above may be indicated in the contract. The mentioning of the place of incorporation of the service provider or its postal contact address may not be sufficient.
Where the services are provided in several Member States, Article 7(1)(b) is to be understood to refer to the place of the main provision of services as it appears from the contractual terms or, in the absence of such terms, the actual performance of the contract. This is the interpretation taken by the CJEU in Wood Floor Solutions v Silva Trade (C-19/09) (2010). That case was concerned with a commercial agency contract and the CJEU added that where the place of the main provision of services could not be identified by either way, it should be deemed to be the place of the agent's domicile. Unlike an agency contract, which may involve various obligations, neither a contract for the exchange of cryptocurrency units with traditional currencies nor a contract for the storage of cryptocurrency units would be likely to cause difficulties in identifying the main provision of services.

Finally, it should be noted that those contracts are likely to contain a choice-of-court agreement. If it is valid and effective under Article 26, it obviates the need to address all the complicated issues of interpretation arising under Article 7(1). A choice-of-court agreement is indeed generally concluded to avoid legal uncertainty. The User Agreement of Coinbase, for example, contains a choice-of-court clause in favour of the English courts. It should further be noted that special rules set forth in Section 4 of the Regulation are applicable if the contract is a consumer contract falling within the scope of their application.

A court addressing the question whether it has jurisdiction to hear and determine a case in commercial matters decides it by applying its rules of jurisdiction. One of the most influential instruments containing rules of jurisdiction is the EU Regulation No 1215/2012 (a.k.a. Brussels Recast or Brussels I-bis). This post will consider under Article 7(1) of this regulation jurisdiction in matters relating to a contract for the exchange of cryptocurrencies with traditional currencies. Article 7 provides:

A person domiciled in a Member State may be sued in another Member State:
(1) (a) in matters relating to a contract, in the courts for the place of performance of the obligation in question;
(b) for the purpose of this provision and unless otherwise agreed, the place of performance of the obligation in question shall be:
— in the case of the sale of goods, the place in a Member State where, under the contract, the goods were delivered or should have been delivered,
— in the case of the provision of services, the place in a Member State where, under the contract, the services were provided or should have been provided;
(c) if point (b) does not apply then point (a) applies;
(2) ... 

To begin with, a contract for the exchange of cryptocurrencies with traditional currencies is unlikely to be deemed a sale of goods since "goods" are generally understood to mean tangible objects. There is no good reason to deviate from the interpretation of CISG (see my earlier post) in this respect.
In another of my earlier post, I noted that the Court of Justice had observed that a narrower meaning could be given to the concept of "provision of services" than the similar concept of “[s]upply of services” of the VAT Directive (Falco Privatstiftung and Rabitsch (Case C-533/07) (2009)). This observation might be seen as something of significance in view of the Court's recent ruling that the "[s]upply of services" of the VAT Directive covered transactions exchanging traditional currencies for bitcoin units and vice versa. 

My view, however, is that the concept of "provision of services" of Regulation No 1215/2012 is wide enough to cover such transactions. The Court's observation in the Privatstiftung case was made in the context of ruling that licensing an intellectual property right did not fall within that concept. The ground for the ruling was that the concept of service implied that the party who provided the service carried out a particular activity whereas the only obligation which the licensor undertook was not to challenge the use of the intellectual property right by the licensee. On the other hand, a contract for the exchange of cryptocurrencies with traditional currencies certainly imposes obligation to undertake a particular activity, i.e. exchanging the currencies.
It is also worth noting that the Court has held that a contract for the storage of goods constitutes a contract for the provision of services (Krejci Lager & Umschlagbetriebs v Olbrich (C-469/12) (2013)) on the reasoning that the commitment of the warehousekeeper of such a contract entails a specific activity consisting of the reception of goods, their storage in a safe place and their return in an appropriate state. A contract for the storage of cryptocurrency units, too, would constitute a contract for the provision of services on a similar reasoning. Accordingly, a contract concluded with a wallet provider would fall within the second indent of Article 7(1)(b).

The next question which arises is how to identify the place of provision of services under that provision. I intend to discuss it in my future post.

The part of the judgment in which the Court held that transactions which consisted of the exchange of traditional currencies for bitcoin units and vice versa constituted the "supply of services" is relatively unremarkable. The "supply of services" and "supply of goods" are two main categories of economic activities taxable under the VAT Directive (Art. 2(1)). The Directive further provides, ‘“[s]upply of services” shall mean any transaction which does not constitute a supply of goods.’ (Art. 24(1)). Seen in this context, the notion of "supply of services" would hardly be expected to receive a narrow interpretation.

It may, however, be of interest to note that the European Court does not necessarily give the same meaning to a similar concept in different contexts. Thus, the Court once noted, "it is not necessary ... to interpret the concept of the 'provision of services' set out in the second indent of Article 5(1)(b) of Regulation No 44/2001 in the light of the definition of the concept of 'services' in the Community directives on VAT" (Falco Privatstiftung and Rabitsch (Case C-533/07) (2009)). On that reasoning, the Court interpreted the concept of the "provision of services" narrowly for the purpose of the rules for determining the jurisdiction of courts of the Member States. In a future post, I intend to discuss whether a claim in matters relating to a contract for the exchange of cryptocurrencies with traditional currencies would fall within the "provision of services" under what is now Article 7(1)(b) of the Brussels I-bis Regulation and if so, how the provision is to be applied.