TL;DR:
- The MiCA transition period expires on July 1 and will leave an estimated 80% of European crypto firms without authorization to operate.
- Of more than 3,000 providers registered under the previous scheme, only 244 obtained a MiCA license; Poland, with 2,000 VASPs, has just one authorized firm.
- Compliance costs can reach 700,000 euros in the first year, and the licensing process takes between 12 and 24 months to complete.
July 1, 2026 marks the end of the transition period for MiCA, the unified regulatory framework governing crypto-asset service providers across the 27 countries of the European Union plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Companies operating under national registrations predating the regulation will lose their legal authorization on that date, and only those who obtained a MiCA license will be allowed to remain active. The outcome could be a severe market contraction: of more than 3,000 providers registered under the previous scheme, only 244 completed the authorization process.
Erald Ghoos, CEO of OKX Europe, estimated that 80% of crypto operators will not survive the transition. Ghoos attributed the phenomenon not only to MiCA itself, but to the accumulated weight of Europe’s regulatory burden, which in some cases also requires additional licenses such as payment institution or electronic money institution status to process stablecoins.
The Weight of Compliance on the Smallest Players
Patrick Gruhn, founder and CEO of Perpetuals.com Ltd., detailed that the locked capital required for a spot MiCA license ranges between 50,000 and 150,000 euros depending on the category, but the total cost can scale up to 700,000 euros in the first year and 250,000 euros annually for a small firm, while large exchanges may face figures running into several millions. On top of that come legal fees of around 100,000 euros and timelines of between 12 and 24 months before the first authorized operation.
The case of Poland perfectly illustrates the scale of the problem. Mateusz Kara, CEO of Morphic Financial Group, noted that his company is the only one among approximately 2,000 registered firms in the country to hold a MiCA license. Legislative delays and presidential vetoes prevented the Polish financial authority from establishing a functional application regime.
MiCA Ends Up Being a Setback for the Industry
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has already urged unauthorized providers to wind down their operations in an orderly manner. However, experts at law firm Hogan Lovells warn that enforcement will vary across jurisdictions. John Salmon, partner at the firm, noted that some countries were slow to produce their legislation and that regulators are unlikely to act with extreme harshness immediately. His colleague Lavan Thasarathakumar was more categorical: any jurisdiction that allows firms to operate under prior national laws will be in breach of European law.
Mike Belshe, CEO of BitGo, described the purge as “a setback,” given the growth of institutional presence in Europe. The effective conversion rate to the new regime does not exceed 17%.
