MiCA: One European Crypto Market — or 27 Different Rulebooks Wearing the Same Label?

As of July 1, 2026, the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) officially takes full effect — an ambitious attempt to build a single, harmonized crypto market across the EU and the European Economic Area. Yet fresh data from the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) paints a far less unified picture than the framework's name suggests.

As of late June, 244 licenses have been issued to crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) across the bloc. Germany leads by a wide margin with 57 authorizations — nearly a quarter of all licenses granted. France follows in second place alongside the Netherlands, with around 26 companies, or roughly 11% of the total.

Notably, France showed a late surge of activity: between June 18 and June 22 alone, the country issued five new licenses, outpacing Malta's two approvals during the same window. New French licensees include Bpifrance Investissement, RCUBE Asset Management, Paymium, Leonod, and Meria.

Why is Germany ahead? According to BaFin, Germany's financial regulator, the country's large financial sector — including a high number of credit institutions eligible to offer crypto services — is a key factor. An additional driver is Germany's pre-existing national licensing regime, which allowed some CASPs to use simplified transition pathways under MiCA. Still, BaFin itself admits Germany's lead isn't guaranteed to last, noting that future outcomes will depend on market trends, innovation, and the pace of approvals elsewhere.

On the other side of the spectrum, five EU member states — Greece, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, and Romania — had issued zero MiCA licenses as of June 26. Greece stands out: Binance applied for authorization there but later withdrew, opting for a different jurisdiction. Poland's case is even more striking — after three presidential vetoes of the relevant legislation, the country entered the EU deadline without any active licensing framework at all.

There's also a separate, less flattering registry: the list of non-compliant CASPs. Italy dominates it almost entirely, accounting for 160 of 162 entries. The Netherlands and Slovakia each have a single entry, linked to MEXC and LWEX respectively.

The takeaway: MiCA was designed as a tool for harmonization, but its early implementation tells a different story — one of fragmentation, regulatory arbitrage, and significant disparities in opportunity depending on which EU jurisdiction a crypto business chooses to operate in.

Source: Cointelegraph