WhiteBIT
WhiteBIT is a centralized crypto exchange founded in 2018 that offers spot trading, deposits and withdrawals in national currencies and savings products on crypto-assets. The exchange belongs to W Group, which reports more than 35 million customers worldwide and sponsors football clubs such as FC Barcelona and Juventus.
For customers in the European Economic Area the group set up WhiteBIT EU, operated by WB-Shields Innovations GmbH in Vienna. The Austrian Financial Market Authority FMA authorized this company on 18 June 2026 as a crypto-asset service provider under MiCA, shortly before the last national transitional periods ended on 1 July 2026.
Authorization by the FMA
The Austrian Financial Market Authority granted WB-Shields Innovations GmbH its authorization under Article 63 of the MiCA regulation on 18 June 2026. The authorization covers custody and administration of crypto-assets, the exchange of crypto-assets for funds and for other crypto-assets, the placing of crypto-assets and transfer services for clients.
The interim MiCA register of ESMA lists passports for 28 other countries of the European Economic Area, and Malta is not among them. The register does not list the operation of a trading platform or the execution of orders for clients.
WhiteBIT EU and whitebit.eu
WhiteBIT EU announced the authorization on 19 June 2026 from Vienna and named whitebit.eu as the regulated platform for users in the EEA. Volodymyr Nosov, founder and president of W Group, said in the release that WhiteBIT was founded as a European exchange and that Europe stays at the core of its plans.
A customer in the EEA who opens an account at whitebit.eu contracts with the Austrian company, and the FMA supervises that company for every country it serves. The global website whitebit.com remains a separate service outside the MiCA authorization.
The end of the transitional period
Under the MiCA transitional period each member state could let existing providers continue for up to 18 months after 30 December 2024. The last of these periods ended on 1 July 2026, and from that date a crypto exchange needs a MiCA authorization to serve customers in the EU.
WhiteBIT received its Austrian authorization less than two weeks before that date. The FMA in Vienna had authorized several other crypto exchanges under MiCA by then, starting in the spring of 2025.
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The WhiteBIT exchange
The WhiteBIT exchange runs an order book for spot trading in crypto-assets and supports deposits and withdrawals in national currencies. The group also issues its own exchange token, WhiteBIT Coin, with the ticker WBT.
Services in the MiCA license
The WhiteBIT MiCA license names five services: custody, exchange against funds, exchange against other crypto-assets, placing and transfers. The CASP license under MiCA lists ten services in total, and each one needs its own entry in the authorization.
Licensed countries in the EEA
WhiteBIT EU holds passports for 28 countries besides Austria: every other EU member state except Malta, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. Malta is excluded both in the register and in the footnote of the WhiteBIT EU release.
WhiteBIT in Austria
WhiteBIT chose Austria for its EEA entity, and the company sits in the Leopoldstadt district of Vienna. Crypto gains of Austrian customers follow the rules of crypto tax in Austria, while customers elsewhere in the EEA pay tax under their national rules.
Football sponsorships and partners
W Group names Visa, the gaming platform FACEIT, FC Barcelona, Juventus and the Ukrainian national football team among its partners. The release of June 2026 lists these partners in its description of W Group, next to the figure of 35 million customers.
WhiteBIT and Finance Loop
Finance Loop covers crypto exchanges such as WhiteBIT in the Investment & Digital Assets track and their MiCA authorizations in the track Risk & Compliance. Finance Loop brings people from banks, exchanges and fintechs together at its crypto events in Frankfurt and in other European cities.
Finance Loop is a professional network and has the goal of driving the institutional use of emerging technologies in finance, such as AI, tokenization, stablecoins, and DeFi. Finance Loop helps its members build skills and personal networks in these fields: Investment & Digital Assets, Payments & Digital Money, Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty, and Risk & Compliance.