Regulations

Story: MiCA and FCA Rules Push European Crypto Firms Toward Mergers Over Licenses

By Sydney TheCMO

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FCA's Proposed Framework Mirrors MiCA Pressure. In the U.K., the Financial Conduct Authority is moving in a parallel direction.

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Banks Circling, But Slowly. Fewer than 20% of European banks currently offer any crypto services.

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Scale Becomes the New Edge. The crypto industry ran for years on speed and disruption.

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Europe's crypto sector is shifting fast. The cost of compliance with the Markets in Crypto Assets regulation — MiCA — is proving steep enough that many firms are eyeing mergers…

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It's not a small pivot. The regulatory burden MiCA places on crypto-native companies is real, and it's starting to sort winners from losers across the continent.

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In the U.K., the Financial Conduct Authority is moving in a parallel direction. The FCA is drafting a crypto framework that slots into the existing financial services rulebook,…

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The client asset regime is probably the sharpest edge of what the FCA is proposing. It would require firms to segregate customer crypto holdings from company funds — a rule that…

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And that gap is exactly what's pushing consolidation. If you can't build it, you merge with someone who already has it.

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Fewer than 20% of European banks currently offer any crypto services. That's a wide-open field, and regulatory clarity from MiCA seems to be giving some of those institutions the…

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Schneider's read is that European banks won't necessarily try to build everything themselves.

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See also: FCA and Police Arrest 4 People in UK Fraud and Money Laundering Crackdown

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That's a meaningful shift from the adversarial framing that dominated the early years of the industry.

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The crypto industry ran for years on speed and disruption. Agile startups could outmaneuver slower incumbents by moving fast and operating in regulatory gray zones.

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Firms that can't reach that scale on their own are facing a hard choice: find a partner, find a buyer, or find the exit. Some are already choosing the exit.

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On the market side, Binance has held onto a significant share of activity and actually saw net inflows in early July, even as broader market outflows picked up.

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