MiCA in Germany

MiCA, Regulation (EU) 2023/1114, is EU law and applies in Germany the same way it applies in every Member State, without a German act of transposition for its main duties. What Germany added is the Kryptomärkteaufsichtsgesetz (KMAG), the law that names BaFin as the competent authority for MiCA in Germany (KMAG section 3) and carries the national transitional rule under MiCA Article 143 (KMAG section 50). So a crypto firm in Germany reads two texts side by side: the EU regulation for the duties, and KMAG for BaFin's powers and the German timeline.

Before MiCA, crypto firms in Germany operated under the Kreditwesengesetz, which since 2020 required a license for crypto custody business and, from later amendments, for other crypto services. That national license regime is now replaced by the EU-wide MiCA authorization, so firms that held the old German license had to move into the new regime during the transition.

A firm whose business is one or more of the ten crypto-asset services MiCA lists, from custody and trading platforms to advice and portfolio management, needs authorization as a crypto-asset service provider (CASP) under Articles 59 and 63. BaFin runs this licensing process from its offices in Bonn and Frankfurt am Main. A bank or investment firm that already holds a license under other EU financial law can skip the full CASP process: Article 60 lets credit institutions, investment firms and a few other regulated firms offer crypto services after a notification to BaFin, filed at least 40 working days before the first service, instead of a new authorization.

Exchanges that serve German customers work through this licensing path. The broker eToro has held its MiCA license from CySEC in Cyprus since 16 January 2025 and serves German customers on that passport, since a CASP license obtained in one EU country is valid across the whole EU under Article 65. Binance had no MiCA authorization in the ESMA register as of 22 October 2026, and the same applies to Bitget, whose terms of use exclude Germany.

MiCA let firms that operated under national law before 30 December 2024 continue for a transitional period of up to 18 months, and each Member State was free to shorten it. Germany chose 12 months: under section 50 of the KMAG, the old permission of a firm with a license under the German Banking Act expired on 31 December 2025 at the latest, or earlier once BaFin had decided on its MiCA application. In a notice of 8 July 2026 (in German) BaFin confirmed the shortened German deadline and the end of the EU-wide period on 1 July 2026, since which only providers with a MiCA license may offer crypto-asset services in the EU.

The register shows what that produced: on 22 October 2026 the ESMA file listed 117 entries with Germany as home state, 8 authorizations of crypto firms under Article 63 and 109 notifications by banks and investment firms under Article 60, as the MiCA CASP list sets out. A refusal became visible as well: futurum bank AG, the operator of bitcoin.de, applied on 27 June 2025 and announced on 6 October 2026 (in German) that BaFin refused its authorization, so the platform plans to route trading and custody through other regulated German institutions. Compliance teams now keep the authorization current as services and markets grow, run the reporting and complaint-handling processes MiCA requires, and maintain the ICT register that DORA asks of a CASP as of a bank.

Finance Loop is the meeting place for compliance officers at crypto-asset service providers and banks, and for the exchanges and custody providers working through MiCA licenses. Finance Loop connects the finance, IT and AI communities in Frankfurt and holds events in Munich, Berlin and Hamburg as well.

MiCAR, compliance and custody were among the topics of the Forum für Digitale Vermögenswerte, a German-language forum with Finance Loop as a partner. Finance Loop also partners with OKX, a crypto exchange that operates under a MiCA license in Europe, and at the Bybit EU Crypto Evening at TechQuartier a senior policy director spoke on compliance under MiCAR. The MiCAR executive program of EBS Executive School and the law firm HEUKING covers licensing and implementation in German at the EBS campus in Oestrich-Winkel. Related pages: KYC in Germany, DORA in Germany and regtech in Germany.

MiCA itself is the EU regulation that sets the duties. Germany adds the Kryptomärkteaufsichtsgesetz (KMAG), which names BaFin as the supervisor and sets the German transitional rule. A crypto firm in Germany answers to both texts, not to a separate German MiCA law.

A firm that provides one or more of the ten MiCA crypto-asset services applies to BaFin for authorization as a crypto-asset service provider under Articles 59 and 63. A bank or investment firm that already holds another EU financial license can instead notify BaFin under Article 60, at least 40 working days before it starts offering crypto services.

Firms that held a crypto custody license under the German Banking Act before 30 December 2024 could keep operating under section 50 of the KMAG, at the latest until 31 December 2025. Since 1 January 2026 such a firm needs a MiCA authorization from BaFin or a notification under Article 60, and the custody license under the Banking Act now covers crypto securities only.