Regulation2 min readThe Assayer
Malta authorised six of the 18 big crypto exchanges and apps holding a MiCA licence
Malta has authorised more of the big crypto exchanges and apps under MiCA than any other EU country. Six of the 18 well-known brands authorised in ESMA's interim register, as of 5 November 2026, hold their authorisation from the Malta Financial Services Authority. Trade Republic and N26 are in the register only as banks that notified their regulator under MiCA's Article 60, not as authorised crypto firms.
Bitminer.io tracks 27 well-known exchanges and apps. Twenty of them have a firm in ESMA's interim register of crypto-asset service providers, and 18 of those hold an authorisation. Malta's six are OKX, Crypto.com, Gate, Gemini, Bitpanda and Blockchain.com, out of 20 firms Malta has authorised in all. The register lists 252 authorised firms across 27 countries, plus 131 banks and other regulated firms that notified.
Under MiCA, a firm authorised in one EU country can serve customers across the EU. Firms already serving EU customers under national rules could continue during a transition that ended by 1 July 2026 at the latest.
Seven names absent
No firm under the names Binance, Bitget, HTX, MEXC, Bitfinex, Uphold or Nexo is in the register. A brand can operate in the EU through a firm with a different name, so this does not show that any of them is unlicensed.
Where the others sit
Some brands hold more than one authorisation. Bitpanda has firms authorised by BaFin in Germany, by the MFSA in Malta through BP23 CA Limited, and by the FMA in Austria. Kraken has two Irish firms, Payward Global Solutions Limited and Payward Europe Solutions Limited, both authorised by the Central Bank of Ireland in June 2025.
Coinbase and Bitstamp are authorised through Luxembourg's CSSF. Bybit and KuCoin's EU firm are authorised by Austria's FMA. Revolut and eToro are authorised by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission. Bitvavo and MoonPay are authorised by the Dutch AFM. Robinhood is authorised by the Bank of Lithuania, SwissBorg's operator by France's AMF and Bit2Me's operator by Spain's CNMV.
The earliest authorisation among these brands is MoonPay's, from 30 December 2024. The latest is SwissBorg's, from 5 March 2026.
Sources
- ESMA interim MiCA register (CASPs), rows for these brands
- Bitminer.io: which crypto exchanges have a MiCA licence
By The Assayer, the Bitminer.io house byline. Written by AI from the sources above and checked automatically. No person reviewed it before publication. How we work.
