Community Trust ScoreVerified
Europe’s crypto sector is getting squeezed. The EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation hit its hard deadline on July 1, 2026, and the fallout is already reshaping who survives — and who gets absorbed.
Any company still serving EU clients without MiCA authorisation had to stop. Full stop. Unlicensed firms now must run wind-down plans and help customers move assets to authorised entities or self-hosted wallets. That’s not a soft transition — it’s a hard cut. And the compliance costs attached to staying in the game are steep enough that smaller exchanges and brokers are basically being pushed toward mergers, sales, or bank partnerships just to keep the lights on.
About 300 firms had gained MiCA authorisation as of July. That’s up from 194 by May, which sounds like progress. But the old landscape had over 3,000 firms operating under national registrations. The math is pretty brutal — most of them are gone or going.
Banks Move In as Smaller Firms Exit
Partnerships between banks and crypto companies are emerging fast. Banks want the technology and client expertise. Crypto firms want the capital and the customer networks. It’s a trade that’s starting to happen at scale.
France’s CACEIS is nearing a deal to acquire Meria, a MiCA-licensed crypto platform. Portugal’s Bison Bank has already integrated its digital-asset subsidiary and become a MiCA-authorised provider. Spain’s Cecabank launched regulated crypto custody services for financial institutions. And a group of European banks picked Fireblocks to back a MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin initiative. Qivalis’ consortium, meanwhile, expanded to 37 financial institutions across 15 countries.
That’s a lot of movement in a short window.
Fewer than 20% of banks are currently involved in crypto services, per Sygnum Europe. But regulatory clarity seems to be changing the calculus. Banks already have compliance frameworks in place — governance structures, AML systems, the whole apparatus. Plugging crypto into that infrastructure is a lot cheaper than building it from scratch. So the incentive to acquire rather than build is real, and it’s growing.
Fintech mergers and acquisitions hit $251 billion in 2025. MiCA probably pushes that number higher, because buyers can spread compliance costs across bigger customer bases. That’s the logic driving a lot of these deals right now.
What MiCA Actually Demands
The licence isn’t just a permission slip. MiCA authorisation comes with continuous obligations — governance requirements, anti-money laundering controls, ongoing reporting. The passporting benefit is real: one licence opens access across the entire EU. But the cost of maintaining that licence is also real, and it hits smaller firms harder than larger ones.
That’s kind of the whole dynamic in a nutshell. Scale matters more now. A mid-sized crypto broker that could survive under a national registration probably can’t carry the full MiCA compliance load alone. So it either finds a partner, gets acquired, or winds down. Not many other options.
The final shape of the market depends on a few things that are still unclear — ongoing authorisation processes, how operational costs shake out, and where customers end up moving their assets. It won’t be obvious for months, probably longer.
UK Adds Another Deadline to Watch
And then there’s the UK. The Financial Conduct Authority opens its authorisation gateway for crypto firms on September 30, 2026. Applications run through February 28, 2027. The new regime itself kicks in on October 25, 2027.
The UK’s approach is different from the EU’s. Rather than a standalone crypto-specific framework like MiCA, the FCA folds crypto into the existing financial regulatory structure. Trading platforms, custodians, and related activities all need authorisation. The standards are high — the FCA treats crypto firms basically like traditional financial institutions, with client-asset protections and governance requirements to match.
That’s going to create similar pressure to what MiCA is doing in the EU. Smaller UK firms are looking at the same math: compliance costs are heavy, the bar is high, and scale helps. Mergers and bank partnerships will probably accelerate there too as the 2027 regime gets closer.
The difference is timing. Europe’s consolidation wave is already happening now. The UK version is still building — but the direction looks the same.
Specialist providers aren’t disappearing entirely. Their technology and market expertise are still valuable to banks that want crypto exposure without building everything in-house. But there will be fewer standalone firms. More of them will end up inside larger institutions, providing infrastructure rather than running independent operations. Whether that’s good or bad for crypto users probably depends on which firm they’re with and how the integration goes. No details yet on how most of these deals will affect end customers.
Qivalis’ 37-institution consortium now spans 15 countries.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many firms have MiCA authorisation as of July 2026?
About 300 firms had gained MiCA authorisation by July 2026, up from 194 approved by May, out of a previous landscape of over 3,000 nationally registered firms.
When does the UK’s FCA crypto authorisation process open?
The FCA opens its crypto authorisation gateway on September 30, 2026, with applications accepted through February 28, 2027, and the full regime starting October 25, 2027.
