The transition period for the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation ended on July 1, 2026, and the consequences are already visible. Crypto firms operating in the bloc must now hold a full MiCA licence, a process that several market participants say is too costly and complex for smaller providers to survive.

Clemens Pachta-Rayhofen, chief executive of Cryptonow, which received its own licence for custody and administration of crypto assets from Austria's Finanzmarktaufsicht in October 2025, says the regulation demands far more than a licence application. "MiCA geht über die Beantragung einer Lizenz hinaus und verlangt von den Krypto-Dienstleistern den Aufbau von langfristigen Compliance-Strukturen. Zudem müssen Anbieter bestimmte Governance- und Technologieanforderungen erfüllen," he said.

The financial bar alone is substantial. MiCA sets minimum regulatory capital at €50,000 for firms offering advisory services, €125,000 for those that also custody assets or exchange crypto for fiat currency, and €150,000 for operators of trading platforms. On top of that, national regulators charge their own processing fees. The Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets, the AFM, bills €200 per hour for handling a licence application, capped at €100,000, plus €2,900 per person for reviewing the suitability of management. Germany's BaFin charges up to €93.61 per hour for administrative staff time, with no stated cap on the total bill.

Exits already under way

The toll is showing in the market. Estonian trading platform Kriptomat withdrew its submitted MiCA application and ceased operations after eight years, telling customers to move their holdings to Kraken. AscendEX, the Romanian exchange originally founded as BitMax, shut down on July 1, 2026, citing the new regulatory regime. MEXC is discontinuing its offering for customers in the Netherlands, pointing to regulatory developments across the European Economic Area, and has arranged for affected users to transfer assets to Kraken or Bybit EU.

Germany has emerged as the centre of gravity for licensed activity, with more than a quarter of all MiCA licences issued so far going to German crypto providers.

Consolidation as a feature, not a bug

Pachta-Rayhofen frames the shakeout as part of the regulation's design. "schwächere oder unseriöse Anbieter aus dem Markt drängen," he said of MiCA's effect on the sector. At the same time, he argues a single rulebook across the bloc has its own value: "ein einheitlicher regulatorischer Rahmen Vertrauen bei Kunden und Geschäftspartnern und ermöglicht, das eigene Geschäftsmodell europaweit zu skalieren."

He cautions that the costs of compliance are not evenly distributable across the industry. "dass regulatorische Anforderungen nicht nur von sehr großen Unternehmen getragen werden können," he said, adding that smaller firms are not automatically disqualified from the new market. "Wenn sie ein gutes Produkt und einen klaren Mehrwert für Kunden bieten, können sie sich in einem regulierten Markt stärker abgrenzen als bisher," he said.

For now, the departures of Kriptomat, AscendEX and MEXC's Dutch operation suggest that the licensing costs set by national regulators such as the AFM and BaFin, combined with MiCA's capital thresholds, are proving decisive for firms without the scale to absorb them.