Top crypto trading platforms Coinbase and Gemini are seeking additional licenses under the MiCA framework in the EU to expand their footprint.
Coinbase and Gemini, two of the world’s largest cryptocurrency firms, are getting set to secure licences from countries in the European Union. These licences will grant the exchanges access to operate across the region.
Notably, this news comes when regulators in certain jurisdictions are beginning to voice their concerns about the ease and speed of approvals in other nations.
Crypto Firms and MiCA Licenses
As reported by Reuters, the Winklevoss twin brothers, Tyler and Cameron, will likely receive a license from Europe’s smallest country, Malta. Within weeks of introducing the new Markets in Crypto Asset (MiCA), OKX and Crypto.com were granted licenses in the same region. Malta is one of the nations that is quickly issuing its approval to crypto firms, raising concerns from other national regulators.
Similarly, Coinbase is expected to obtain a license from Luxembourg, with the application in the pipeline for several weeks. A Coinbase spokesperson noted that Luxembourg was a “high-bar, well-respected global financial centre.” The spokesperson also confirmed that the crypto exchange would increase its headcount in the country by more than 20 people by the end of the year.
In line with EU license approvals, ZBD, a well-known payment company, obtained the first MiCA approval from the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) in December 2024. Still in December, other companies like MoonPay, Bitstamp, and Hidden Road also received MiCA licenses from the Netherlands.
At the beginning of this year, Boerse Stuttgart Digital expanded its brokerage and exchange services with a MiCA license from BaFin in Germany. Again, Bitpanda received the European Union’s MiCA license in January from the same German regulator.
With these licenses, the firms can offer their services to all 27 EU member states. MiCA provides a uniform regulatory framework that cuts across all these locations.
🇪🇺 Gemini and Coinbase are poised to obtain EU-wide licenses under the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, according to Reuters 🪪
— Yumi Space 🍁 (@yumispacee) June 14, 2025
Concerns About Speed and Rigor of MiCA License Approval
Right when 2024 was ending, the MiCA regulation was rolled out in the EU with a keen focus on stablecoins. MiCa is focused on bringing crypto operations under functional rules to a level playing field, similar to the Traditional Finance (TradFi) system.
Under this regulatory framework, member states of the EU are authorized to issue licences that allow crypto companies to operate throughout the 27-nation bloc. Still, a few have raised concerns in closed-door meetings, per reports. According to certain individuals who requested anonymity, some regulators have highlighted the speed with which licenses are granted and the rigor involved, particularly in relation to platforms that offer limited identity verification, such as no KYC casinos, which may pose challenges for anti-money laundering oversight.
These entities strongly believe that more attention needs to be given to all that could go wrong due to the leniency with license issuance. The projected problems include fraud, market instability, and illicit financial flows. If this industry is left unsupervised or the MiCA rule is unevenly enforced, the framework’s purpose may be defeated, as the concerned entities stated.
next