The European Union has issued around 230 licenses under its Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation as a hard July 1 deadline approaches, with Germany leading the bloc on 56 authorizations. Spain’s securities regulator has ruled out any extension, leaving non-compliant exchanges facing restrictions across the EU.
Key Takeaways:
The EU has issued roughly 230 MiCA licenses, with Germany leading on 56, the Netherlands on 26, and France on 21.Spain’s CNMV says there will be no extension to the July 1 deadline for crypto firms.More than 80% of EU crypto firms remain unlicensed days before the transitional period ends.Germany leads with 56 licenses, followed by the Netherlands with 26 and France with 21, a distribution that has raised concerns about market diversity as activity consolidates in a handful of jurisdictions.
The uneven spread has once again shown how firms have tended to obtain a license in the most efficient jurisdictions and then passport their services across the bloc, concentrating approvals in a few member states while others have issued few or none.
That same concentration, however, has the industry worrying, given that higher compliance costs and heavy documentation requirements have pushed smaller players to exit or merge, and critics warn the shake-out could hand outsized influence to a small group of well-resourced platforms.
Spain Slams the Door on an ExtensionThat position aligns with the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), which has emphasized that a pending application offers no protection past the cutoff. Under MiCA’s transitional rules, the right to keep serving European users ends on July 1 or when an application is granted or refused, whichever comes first.
The Unlicensed Majority
