Uniform MiCA Rules for the Crypto Market Take Effect Across the EU on July 1

⋅ From July 1, exchanges without a MiCA license are no longer allowed to serve EU clients. The deadline applies across the entire Union, with no regional exceptions.

⋅ Tax authorities gain full visibility into transactions—through the travel rule and the new DAC8 reporting regime.

⋅ The stablecoin USDT is not being offered to Europeans under MiCA. Privacy coins are disappearing from platforms, although the formal ban will only take effect in 2027.

⋅ Cold non-custodial wallets are not covered by MiCA—self-custody of private keys remains outside the regulation.

MiCA is the world’s first law to regulate the crypto market in its entirety. Exchanges, wallets, and token issuers—all are required to obtain licenses.

Stablecoins now operate under separate rules—100% reserves, monthly audits, and an electronic money issuer license.

Every transaction now triggers the travel rule. For any crypto transfer, a licensed exchange is required to collect and transmit information about both the sender and the recipient.

Starting January 1, 2026, this was supplemented by DAC8. European exchanges now collect information on all client transactions and automatically transmit it to tax authorities without any specific request. The first cross-border exchange of this data between EU tax agencies will take place in 2027, covering activity from 2026.

In essence, MiCA is less about crypto itself than about taxation and capital control. Cryptocurrency remained the only major asset class largely invisible to the state for too long. The EU decided to put an end to that.

First of all—the operator of the stablecoin USDT, Tether. The company did not apply for a license, meaning exchanges operating under MiCA cannot offer USDT to European users. Binance restricted it as early as 2025. This does not mean Europeans will be entirely unable to use USDT—they still can, but through a different structure discussed below.

Privacy coins were also hit—Monero, Zcash, Dash. The EU’s new anti-money laundering regulation (AMLR, Regulation 2024/1624) explicitly bans crypto services from listing or holding such assets. There is, however, an important timing caveat—the ban does not take effect on July 1, 2026 alongside MiCA, but separately on July 1, 2027. Still, platforms are not waiting for the deadline and are delisting privacy coins in advance. Monero has already been removed by OKX, Binance, and Kraken in several jurisdictions. In other words, privacy coins formally still have another year in the EU, but in practice their removal has already begun.

Many smaller exchanges also failed to obtain licenses. Securing a CASP license can cost hundreds of thousands—or even millions—of euros in legal and technical expenses. Smaller players simply cannot afford it. Some shut down entirely, while others quietly blocked European users.

DeFi with centralized elements. MiCA does not apply to fully decentralized protocols. But once there is a management team, interface, or governance token, the full regulatory burden falls on them. Launching an algorithmic stablecoin now requires authorization and identification—algorithmic safeguards alone are no longer enough. The outcome is predictable: developers are moving outside the EU.

Fractionalized NFTs. Large collections may be classified as fungible assets, triggering full identification requirements. Splitting NFTs into fractions is considered especially risky.

Several projects with Ukrainian roots have also been affected by the new rules. The Polish startup IN1, linked to former Ukreximbank deputy chairwoman Svitlana Monastyrska and focused on Ukrainians in Europe, announced it was suspending operations in the EU because of MiCA.

CoinsPaid—one of the world’s largest crypto payment processors—was founded by Ukrainian entrepreneur Max Krupyshev, who stood at the origins of Bitcoin Foundation Ukraine. In January 2026, the group’s Lithuanian entity, Dream Finance UAB, halted all crypto services. Analysts view this as a forced withdrawal following the failure of its licensing application.

Significantly more licenses have been issued than many assume. By spring 2026, around 200 companies across the EU had received CASP authorization under MiCA—with the highest concentrations in Germany, the Netherlands, Malta, and France.

But there is an important nuance. A CASP license covers around a dozen different services, and only a portion of companies hold the full set of permissions required to operate a centralized exchange. At present, roughly 14 firms have full authorization. Among the better-known names are Binance (France), Kraken and Coinbase (Ireland), Bitstamp (Luxembourg), OKX, Crypto.com, and Gemini (Malta), as well as Bitpanda (Vienna). Vienna has effectively become a crypto hub—Bybit and Bitget are also based there.

For companies registered outside the EU, MiCA explicitly prohibits providing crypto services to European clients. Here is what users can expect from platforms that attempt to operate without authorization.

IP and geolocation blocking. Unlicensed exchanges seeking to avoid sanctions are already starting to geoblock EU users during registration and KYC verification. Existing accounts are being left untouched for now more often than not—but that is likely temporary.

The banking channel. This is the most vulnerable point. Violations of MiCA can lead to a platform being blacklisted by regulators across the EU. Once that happens, European banks and payment systems stop processing transactions to and from the platform’s addresses. Depositing and withdrawing money becomes nearly impossible—even if the exchange itself technically remains accessible.

Tax reporting. From 2026 onward, European tax authorities can see everything happening on licensed platforms. If a user simultaneously trades on an unlicensed exchange and later transfers funds back through a European bank, it becomes visible and may trigger questions.

This is an important question for many users, and the answer is broadly reassuring—MiCA does not apply to cold wallets. If you hold your own keys, you are not using the services of a provider, which means there is no entity to regulate. Non-custodial wallets such as Trust Wallet and Ledger remain outside MiCA’s direct scope.

Accordingly, users will still be able to move USDT and other unlicensed crypto assets through cold wallets, just as before.

There is, however, one caveat—the same travel rule. When cryptocurrency is transferred from a cold wallet to an exchange, a licensed European platform is required to collect information about the sender when receiving funds from such a wallet. But it cannot block the transaction solely because the wallet is non-custodial.