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Unlimit just got onto the CySEC MiCA register. Good news for the payments firm — but the harder regulatory fight is barely starting.
The company, which already holds an Electronic Money Institution license in Cyprus, can now operate under the EU’s unified crypto asset framework. Before MiCA, firms like Unlimit had to wrestle with different national standards across every member state. Irene Skrynova, who runs global payments at Unlimit, put it plainly: there’s now a single framework. That’s a real shift. But MiCA doesn’t cover everything, and the stablecoin piece is where things get messy fast.
The problem is the overlap.
Two Licenses, One Product
Issuing a stablecoin in Europe still requires an EMI license — not just a MiCA registration. The two regimes sit side by side and don’t fully talk to each other. Stablecoins fall under electronic money rules, which means the Central Bank of Cyprus oversees Unlimit’s stablecoin activity, not just the crypto-specific MiCA framework. The European Commission knows this is awkward. It recently opened a public consultation on exactly that regulatory interplay, essentially asking the industry: is this dual-licensing setup working, or is it killing the market?
Short answer, based on what’s already happened: it’s pretty much killing the market for smaller players.
Compliance costs under MiCA have pushed a notable chunk of crypto firms out of the European market entirely. Many disappeared under the earlier national CASP regulations before MiCA even fully kicked in. And it’s not just tiny startups. Tether, probably the most recognized stablecoin issuer on the planet, hasn’t registered under MiCA. That’s a big signal. If the world’s largest stablecoin operator won’t go through the process, the barriers are clearly not trivial.
Bigger firms can absorb legal costs, compliance teams, multi-jurisdiction filings. Smaller ones can’t. So the market consolidates, or it shrinks. Neither outcome is great for competition.
The ECB’s Digital Euro Play
The European Central Bank isn’t exactly rooting for private stablecoins to succeed. ECB President Christine Lagarde has warned publicly about risks to financial stability and monetary policy integrity if private euro-denominated stablecoins spread widely. The ECB’s preferred solution is the digital euro — a public currency alternative it’s been developing for years now.
That’s not a neutral position. When the central bank of a currency bloc actively works to build a competitor to private stablecoins while simultaneously maintaining regulatory conditions that make those stablecoins expensive to issue, the deck is kind of stacked. Whether that’s intentional policy or just institutional caution is unclear, but the practical effect is the same.
And the ECB’s firm stance makes any loosening of the dual-licensing requirement unlikely in the near term. The European Commission’s consultation may gather feedback, but if the ECB doesn’t want the rules to change, they probably won’t change much. The Commission can consult all it wants — the ECB’s position on monetary sovereignty isn’t going to soften because a few crypto firms filed comments.
What This Means for the Market
Unlimit’s MiCA registration is still a meaningful milestone. Having both an EMI license and a MiCA registration puts the company in a relatively small group of firms that can operate across the full EU crypto and payments landscape legally. That’s a competitive edge, at least for now.
But the stablecoin gap in MiCA’s coverage isn’t going away quietly. The framework was supposed to bring clarity. For crypto asset services broadly, it has. For stablecoins specifically, it’s layered new requirements on top of old ones without resolving the underlying tension between crypto regulation and electronic money regulation. Two regimes, one product, two sets of costs.
The ongoing public consultation from the European Commission is the clearest sign yet that regulators know something isn’t working. Whether that acknowledgment turns into actual reform is another question. The ECB’s priorities — price stability, monetary policy control, the digital euro rollout — don’t really align with making it easier for private stablecoin issuers to operate. So the industry is probably stuck navigating this dual-licensing maze for a while longer.
Firms with deep pockets and existing EMI licenses, like Unlimit, can manage it. Everyone else faces a harder call. The number of crypto firms still standing in Europe after the national CASP registration wave is already smaller than it was two years ago. MiCA was meant to fix that fragmentation. For stablecoins, it hasn’t — not yet, and maybe not soon.
Unlimit’s Cyprus EMI license covers the stablecoin side. The MiCA registration covers the rest.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Unlimit’s MiCA registration actually cover?
Unlimit’s MiCA registration through CySEC covers crypto asset services under the EU’s unified framework, but stablecoin issuance remains separately governed by its Electronic Money Institution license in Cyprus under Central Bank oversight.
Why hasn’t Tether registered under MiCA?
The source notes Tether has refrained from MiCA registration, reflecting the regulatory hurdles and compliance costs involved, though no specific reason from Tether is given.
