European Crypto Business Counts Winners, Losers as MiCA Deadline Looms

Only 242 companies offering custody, trading, exchange and other crypto services across the EU were authorized under MiCA as of ESMA's register update on 26 Jun. Meanwhile, blockchain intelligence and cryptocurrency analytics firm TRM Labs reckons about 1,100–1,300 virtual asset service providers (VASPs) were active in Europe under the pre-MiCA regime. That means the vast majority of crypto operators would be required to beat an orderly retreat from a market potentially serving 451mn people.

ESMA confirmed in April that there would be no extension of the deadline for MiCA, an EU-wide regulatory framework replacing a multitude of national crypto trading rules, offering stronger consumer protection and setting standards for stablecoin issuers. Its arrival will be a wake-up call for the industry and consumers alike.

"On July 1, hundreds of thousands of European crypto holders will wake up as regulatory refugees," Danny Sanders, CCO of hardware wallet operator Trezor wrote in an email to Sandmark. "The ones who land at a licensed exchange will find it looks more and more like a bank: regulated, monitored, asking permission for things that used to be instant."

With MiCA, the industry is coming of age

Miroslav Đurić, a lawyer who advises crypto-asset service providers and contributed input to MiCA's early drafting, said the regime has forced the industry to professionalize.

"MiCA basically involved the shift to a full-licence regime, and this was a novelty for crypto businesses across the majority of EU member states," he said, adding however that "it is something the industry is mostly getting used to."

To those that cleared the MiCA bar, including Coinbase, Kraken, OKX and Bitpanda, the new rules brought a shift in company culture that went beyond mere compliance and a focus on the fight against money laundering, said Matthias Bauer-Langgartner, Head of Europe Policy at Chainalysis, a blockchain data and analytics company.

"MiCA has changed compliance in Europe less by rewriting AML overnight and more by changing how firms think about market entry, governance and day-to-day operating discipline," he said. "It has moved the EU from a fragmented, largely AML-led landscape to a common rulebook with conduct, prudential and organisational requirements, which gives firms a clearer route to market and a more predictable framework for engaging with supervisors."

MiCA is good for business

Companies that have obtained MiCA licences have found it to be good for business. Germany's crypto transaction volumes grew 54% to $219.4bn from July 2024 to June 2025, reflecting how regulatory predictability and existing financial infrastructure can attract serious market participants, Chainalysis' Bauer-Langgartner said in a written reply to questions from Sandmark. At the same time, the compliance baseline is rising, with nearly half of organizations onboarded to Chainalysis KYT in 2026 operating at alerting standards that would have placed them in the top 10% of strictness in 2020.

"So the real shift under MiCA is not simply more rules; it is higher expectations around governance, controls and operational maturity," he said.

Đurić said that the shift towards a maturing structure within crypto businesses is reflected in hiring practices. "There is a big focus now on compliance personnel, risk management personnel and experienced managers, going well beyond the founder circle," he said. "That is something which, just six or seven years ago, was pretty much unheard of in the crypto industry."

But is it still fit for purpose?

But even as the industry has grown up quickly under MiCA, some say the 2023 legislation is already out of date. The European Commission is scheduled to report by 30 Jun 2027 on MiCA's fitness for purpose, based on a consultation asking 86 questions across four areas. Stablecoins get by far the most detailed treatment.

MiCA's prohibition on interest-bearing stablecoins is a particular sticking point, with many participants saying it stands in the way of competitiveness and risks leaving Europe isolated.

"The EU is the only big jurisdiction that has this wide-ranging interest prohibition on stablecoins, both at the issuer and at the CASP level. I think this does not serve the EU's global positioning in the crypto industry any good," said Đurić. He cited a "ridiculous" MiCA provision that brings euro-denominated stablecoins under its remit, regardless of where they are issued. "It does not protect the market in any way, and it cuts through any possibility of the euro becoming a reserve asset that global stablecoin issuers actually use."

In an April report, Reforming MiCA for Euro Stablecoins, the Brussels-based association Blockchain for Europe made the same case, arguing that MiCA had left euro-pegged stablecoins less competitive than their dollar rivals.

Bauer-Langgartner said that the regulation has also struggled with "the parts of the market that are most global, fast-evolving or difficult to fit into neat legal categories," particularly DeFi activities like staking and lending.

As the DeFi industry has grown, this gap has become increasingly clear, particularly in DeFi services offered by CASPs, he said, adding this has left even those with CASP licences uncertain how these services will be treated.

Striking a more appreciative note, lawyer Đurić applauded MiCA's core design. "Given that it was drafted five or six years ago, it is pretty good," he said. "It is pretty clear for the industry where the key points of differentiation lie between regulated financial instruments, crypto assets and stablecoins." The authorization regime for service providers, he added, is "pretty much functional."

Robin Nordnes, chief executive and founder of Raiku, a tool on Solana that helps with transaction congestion, sees the stablecoin rules as already "the most coherent part of what was drafted." MiCA's rules on asset-referenced and e-money tokens have established "reserve requirements, redemption rights, and governance standards that were completely absent from the market before."

Rework the rules, or leave them?

Despite the MiCA regime's shortcomings, opinions are divided as to what adjustments should be made, or whether it's advisable to tinker with it in the first place.

Despite the DeFi blind spot, Bauer-Langgartner cautioned against a wholesale rewrite, as "the bigger issue now is not a lack of rules, but more consistent application of the rules Europe already has."

He noted a debate over whether centralizing more oversight under ESMA could encourage that consistency, even as it would carry its own political and operational expenses.

Nordnes at Raiku would adjust the rules to require CASPs and e-money issuers to assess and disclose settlement finality risk. The change would not mandate any particular technology, he said, but only force firms to document the possible failures they are exposed to.

Đurić said there would be two areas for improvement. "The first would be for lawmakers to allow [CASPs] to leverage their parent companies abroad and thereby give clients easier access to global liquidity pools," he said. "The second is to approach the stablecoin regime very carefully and to think through the feedback coming from the industry, taking into consideration what other jurisdictions are doing and what the market really needs."

Whatever happens next, the global regulatory landscape is far more developed than when MiCA was passed. The US has advanced its own stablecoin laws, while financial centres in the Middle East and Asia have built rival frameworks. Europe may run the risk of driving away crypto business if its rules are considered too hostile.