Europe’s crypto industry is bracing for a shakeout.
The transition period for the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, known as MiCA, ends July 1, closing the window in which firms could keep operating under older national regimes. From that point, companies serving EU users are expected to hold a MiCA license, a single authorization that passports across all 27 member states.
For its backers, the milestone is a turning point. Alexis Sirkia, captain of trading-infrastructure firm Yellow Network, said the end of the transition period pushes the industry into a “new phase of growth,” with clearer rules helping to establish transparency and trust. MiCA’s success, he argued, “won’t be measured by the number of licences issued, but by whether it helps drive broader adoption.”
The reality on the ground is messier. Around 200 firms now hold full CASP authorization, according to ESMA’s public register, a fraction of the pre-MiCA market.
Avital Haitovich, partner and head of blockchain at law firm Gornitzky, said the low figure is unsurprising. She pointed to an application process that can run to hundreds of pages on governance, AML controls, capital adequacy, and operational resilience, followed by multiple rounds of regulator questions. By mid-2026, she noted, not every member state had even issued its first licenses.
Haitovich said MiCA is both strengthening the European market and risking pushing liquidity elsewhere, “the core trade-off in any early regulatory framework.” A single passport and common rules make the bloc easier for institutions to navigate, but costly compliance is “likely to accelerate consolidation,” she said, leaving a market that could be “smaller, more concentrated, and more tightly supervised.”
The squeeze is already visible at the top. Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, is likely to be denied an EU license, Reuters reported, with Greece’s market regulator expected to reject its application before the deadline. The exchange said it believes it is compliant and remains “willing and ready to operate under a truly harmonized MiCA regime,” though it warned that disruption to its access could weaken liquidity and competition across the bloc.
Crypto Exchange Binance Will Be Rejected for EU Regulatory License: Reuters
For some, a consolidation is overdue. Joe Buttram, CEO of digital-asset infrastructure firm Field Digital, called the prospect “an inflection point in Europe’s crypto brokerage sector.” He argued that European brokerages remain fragmented, threatening their competitiveness against global rivals, and predicted an uptick in acquisitions in the near term.