TL;DR:
- Germany leads MiCA authorizations in the European Union, with 79 registered crypto-asset service providers.
- The latest ESMA registry update adds 6 cooperative banks and raises the global total to 331 authorized CASPs.
- France and the Netherlands rank second and third with 35 and 29 providers respectively, far behind Germany’s first place.
Germany strengthened its leadership position within the European Union’s regulatory framework for crypto-assets, known as MiCA, following the addition of six new cooperative banks to the official registry of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). The latest update published raised the global total of authorized crypto-asset service providers to 331.
The six new members are German cooperative banking institutions: Raiffeisenbank Aidlingen, Ihre Volksbank, VR-Bank Mittelfranken Mitte, Volksbank Euskirchen, VR Bank Ried-Überwald, and Volksbank Backnang. With these additions, the country now counts 79 providers regulated under MiCA, up from the 57 recorded at the end of June, when it already led the European ranking.
Why Germany Dominates the ESMA Registry
France remains in second place with 35 authorizations, while the Netherlands sits third with 29. The gap between the leader and its followers is, for now, more than considerable. Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, known as BaFin, explained that the high number of authorizations responds to two main factors: the size of the financial sector in Germany and the number of credit institutions enabled to offer crypto-asset services.
BaFin also noted that the pre-existing national licensing regime streamlined the process, as it allowed several providers to access simplified authorization procedures during the transition to MiCA. This represents a structural advantage that other European Union countries do not necessarily possess to the same degree.
As for the remaining ESMA registries, no significant changes were recorded. The asset-referenced token list remains empty, the e-money token registry holds 43 entries, and the list of non-compliant entities stands at 167. The concentration of authorizations among cooperative banks shows that the institutional adoption of MiCA is advancing through traditional channels rather than through purely crypto-native companies.
