The largest crypto exchanges in Germany

An exchange only qualifies for this list once its license is checked first: a firm needs authorization as a crypto-asset service provider (CASP) under MiCA, Regulation (EU) 2023/1114, or, for custody business at a German bank, a license under the German Banking Act (Kreditwesengesetz, KWG) from BaFin. After the license, the order follows the number of customers each company states for Germany or the DACH region, then published trading volume where a company discloses it. A platform still missing from the ESMA MiCA register after the July 2026 transitional deadline is left off this list, however large its user base.

A crypto exchange runs its own order book and lets customers trade directly against other users or the platform's own liquidity, the model Bitpanda, Börse Stuttgart Digital and Kraken use. A broker instead buys and sells on a customer's behalf at a quoted price, without a public order book; Trade Republic and Scalable Capital work this way, and several use a licensed exchange as their execution partner in the background. A bank offering crypto trading, such as DZ Bank for its cooperative banks or DekaBank for the savings banks, adds crypto-asset custody and trading to an existing account a customer already holds, under the bank's own banking license plus its MiCA or KWG authorization for the crypto business.

Bitpanda is a retail crypto and investment platform founded in Vienna. It was the first major crypto company to receive a MiCA license from BaFin, and it holds additional MiCA authorizations from Austria's FMA and Malta's MFSA. Bitpanda ended 2025 with 7.4 million registered users across Europe, a large share of them in Germany. Customers in Germany trade bitcoin, other crypto-assets, stocks and precious metals on the platform, and can move crypto into and out of self-custody wallets.

Börse Stuttgart Digital is the crypto and digital-asset business of Börse Stuttgart, Germany's second-largest stock exchange, seated in Stuttgart. Its Boerse Stuttgart Digital Custody GmbH has held a BaFin custody license since 2023 and its exchange arm added an EU-wide MiCA license in 2025. The BISON app, the retail front end for its crypto and stock trading, counts more than one million users who trade bitcoin and dozens of other cryptocurrencies alongside stocks and ETFs. Börse Stuttgart Digital also runs the custody infrastructure behind DekaBank's crypto service for the savings banks.

Coinbase, the US crypto exchange, set up Coinbase Germany GmbH in Berlin and received a BaFin license for crypto custody and proprietary trading, the first license of its kind BaFin granted under Germany's pre-MiCA regime. Coinbase later added a MiCA license from Luxembourg's CSSF for its wider EU business, which passports to Germany. Customers in Germany buy, sell and store bitcoin and other crypto-assets on the platform and its Coinbase One and Coinbase Advanced products.

Kraken, one of the longest-running crypto exchanges, serves EU customers through Payward Europe Solutions Limited, which received its MiCA CASP license from the Central Bank of Ireland and began serving German clients directly under that license in 2025. The Irish license passports to Germany under MiCA's single-license rule, so Kraken needs no separate BaFin authorization to keep operating here. German customers trade bitcoin and a wide range of other crypto-assets, use staking, and access Kraken's margin and futures products where these remain available to EU retail customers.

Trade Republic, the Berlin-based broker with a full German banking license, received a full MiCA license from BaFin, which lets it run crypto custody, order execution and transfer services itself instead of through a partner exchange. Trade Republic states more than four million customers use its crypto offering, out of a total customer base of around eight million across its European markets. Customers in Germany buy, hold and transfer bitcoin and a growing list of other crypto-assets from the same app they use for stocks, ETFs and savings plans.

Scalable Capital, the Munich-based broker, became a full bank under BaFin and Bundesbank supervision, adding deposit-taking and lending to its brokerage and wealth-management business. Scalable Capital reports more than one million customers and over 34 billion euros in assets on its platform. Crypto trading runs alongside its stock, ETF and savings-plan brokerage, with a licensed partner handling the underlying crypto execution and custody.

DZ Bank, the central institution for Germany's cooperative banking sector and seated in Frankfurt, received a MiCA license from BaFin for meinKrypto, a crypto trading and custody platform built into the VR Banking app used by the local Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken. Each cooperative bank still applies separately to BaFin to switch the feature on for its own customers. Where it is active, customers trade bitcoin, ether and other major crypto-assets from the banking app they already use for their checking account.

DekaBank, the securities house owned by Germany's savings banks and seated in Frankfurt, received BaFin and European Central Bank approval for crypto custody under the KWG. The resulting service, Krypto powered by Deka, runs inside the Sparkasse app; Sparkassen have described a customer base of tens of millions the feature could reach as individual savings banks switch it on. Customers who get access trade bitcoin, ether, XRP and Solana from the Sparkasse app, with Börse Stuttgart Digital providing the trading and custody infrastructure behind it.

OKX, a global crypto exchange, runs its EU business as OKX Europe, licensed as a CASP by Malta's MFSA and passported across the EEA, including Germany. Bybit serves EU customers through Bybit EU GmbH, authorized by Austria's FMA and based in Vienna. Both exchanges are global platforms with a large non-German user base; German customers reach them through the same MiCA passport that licenses every other exchange on this page.

Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange by volume, has no MiCA license. It withdrew its application in Greece before the transitional deadline and stopped onboarding new EU customers on July 1, 2026, though it says it plans to apply again through another member state. A platform in this position is missing from the ESMA MiCA register, which is the reason it does not appear as a licensed option on this page.

The ESMA MiCA register lists every crypto-asset service provider authorized anywhere in the EU, built from the notifications national supervisors send to ESMA. For a company licensed directly by BaFin, or for the KWG custody license a bank needs on top of MiCA, the BaFin company database shows the license and the date it was granted. A claim of being licensed on an exchange's own marketing page is not proof by itself; checking the register before opening an account is what confirms it.

By stated user numbers, Bitpanda and Börse Stuttgart Digital's BISON app are the two largest platforms built for German and Austrian retail customers, each with more than a million users. Among licensed brokers offering crypto from an existing account, Trade Republic states more than four million customers use its crypto feature, out of a customer base of around eight million.

Yes. DZ Bank added crypto trading and custody for the Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken under its meinKrypto platform, and DekaBank added crypto custody for the Sparkassen under Krypto powered by Deka. Both run under a BaFin license, and both reach a customer through a banking app the customer already uses.

No. A platform can serve German customers under a MiCA license granted in another EU country, such as Kraken's Irish license or OKX's Maltese one, because a CASP license passports across the whole EU. A platform without any MiCA license anywhere, such as Binance as of mid-2026, is not a legal option for a new EU customer, whatever country it targets its marketing at.