European crypto exchanges and their MiCA licenses

A crypto exchange that offers trading services in the EU needs authorization as a crypto-asset service provider (CASP) under Articles 59 and 63 of MiCA, Regulation (EU) 2023/1114. The exchange applies to the national supervisor of the member state where it is based, such as BaFin in Germany, the CSSF in Luxembourg or the Austrian FMA. Under Article 65, a CASP license granted in one member state is valid across the whole EU, so an exchange licensed in Luxembourg can serve customers in Germany without a second license.

That single-license principle is why exchanges pick one home supervisor and build their EU operation around it. Coinbase received its MiCA license from the CSSF and made Luxembourg its European hub. Bitpanda holds MiCA licenses from BaFin, the Maltese MFSA and the Austrian FMA, and Bitget is building its EU headquarters in Vienna.

MiCA lists ten crypto-asset services that need authorization, from operating a trading platform to custody, exchange and portfolio management, under Article 3(1)(16). An exchange's license names which of these services it is authorized to provide, so two licensed exchanges do not necessarily offer the same range of activity. Alongside licensing, MiCA's Title VI sets market abuse rules, including a duty for trading platforms to publish their trading data on reasonable commercial terms, and the Transfer of Funds Regulation brings the travel rule to crypto transfers, requiring an exchange to send sender and recipient information with each transaction.

The transitional period that let exchanges operate under old national rules has closed across the EU. ESMA told crypto firms without a license to stop serving EU customers, and it publishes the ESMA MiCA register of authorized providers for anyone to check before opening an account. A claim of being MiCA-licensed on an exchange's own marketing page is not proof; the register, built from the notifications national supervisors send ESMA, is the source to check instead.

Finance Loop partners with OKX, a crypto exchange that operates under a MiCA license in Europe, and with Bybit EU, which held a Crypto Evening at TechQuartier in Frankfurt where a senior policy director spoke on compliance under MiCAR. Bybit EU also co-hosted the Bybit EU x Circle Roadshow in Frankfurt with panels on stablecoins and regulated digital markets. Finance Loop is a media partner of the European Blockchain Convention in Barcelona, which puts CASP licensing on its program now that MiCA is fully in force. The MiCAR executive program of EBS Executive School and HEUKING covers the licensing requirements for trading platforms and other crypto-asset service providers. Related pages: crypto in Europe, crypto market data and MiCAR, Regulation (EU) 2023/1114.

Coinbase, Bitpanda, Bitget, OKX and several other exchanges hold MiCA licenses from EU supervisors including the CSSF in Luxembourg, BaFin in Germany and the FMA in Austria. The ESMA MiCA register lists every authorized provider and updates each time a new license is granted, which makes it the register to check before opening an account.

Yes. Under MiCA's Article 65 single-license principle, a CASP license granted by one national supervisor is valid across every EU member state, without a separate license in each country.

The national transitional periods that let exchanges keep operating under old rules have ended across the EU. ESMA has told unlicensed firms to stop serving EU customers, so an exchange still missing from the ESMA register after its country's transition period ended is operating without EU authorization.