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After a 15-month review, Germany's financial watchdog has turned down the MiCA licence application of futurum bank AG, the entity behind Bitcoin.de, leaving one of Germany's oldest crypto marketplaces without a clear path back to trading.
With the EU's MiCA transition period over since July 1, 2026, licensing costs and compliance burdens are consolidating the European crypto industry, as Kriptomat, AscendEX and MEXC's Dutch unit shut down.
Two years into MiCA, Circle has told the European Commission that the regulation's reserve requirements are too rigid, proposing changes to bank deposit ratios, bond concentration limits and counterparty caps.
The EU Commission's consultation on revising MiCA closed on Wednesday, with Circle, Deutsche Börse and others demanding changes to stablecoin reserve requirements, while Berlin-based Greenfield Capital calls for lower hurdles for euro-denominated stablecoins.
More than 50,000 supporters of Stand With Crypto EU have written to the European Commission asking it to lift MiCA's ban on stablecoin interest and rewards, as the European Central Bank pushes to extend the restriction to crypto lending and staking.
Bitcoin.de has been unable to trade for three months as its parent bank awaits a MiCA licence, and the exchange's operator Bitcoin Group has posted a sharp deterioration in first-half results.
ESMA chief Verena Ross told the European Parliament the agency is moving from drafting MiCA rules to enforcing them consistently, as ESMA published its 2027 work programme detailing new supervisory tools and priorities.
The European System of Central Banks wants Brussels to drop MiCA's minimum bank-deposit requirements for stablecoin reserves, proposing liquidity-based rules instead and renewing warnings against so-called multi-issuance stablecoin models.
The Wall Street Journal reports that ECB President Christine Lagarde personally asked Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis not to approve Binance's MiCA application, citing past US violations and fears over dollar stablecoins.
A 21-strong consortium of global banks, including three major European lenders, is preparing a dollar-pegged stablecoin for 2027, with plans to extend the project to the euro and other G7 currencies.
MEXC is closing its platform to residents of the Netherlands after failing to secure a MiCA licence, while rival Bybit EU, which holds regulatory approval, positions itself to take on the exchange's displaced Dutch users.