Europe’s crypto industry has lost its last regulatory safety net. On July 1, 2026, the transitional “grandfathering” period under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) expired across all 27 EU member states and the 30 EEA countries.
According to Identomat, the consequence is stark. Any company providing crypto-asset services to EU clients without a MiCA licence is no longer merely lagging on compliance. According to the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), it may now be in breach of EU law and must cease offering those services.
MiCA, formally Regulation (EU) 2023/1114, is the bloc’s comprehensive rulebook for crypto-assets falling outside existing financial services legislation. It replaced a patchwork of national regimes with a single set of rules and a single licence, passportable across the EU.
The regime arrived in phases: stablecoin rules for asset-referenced tokens and e-money tokens went live in June 2024, followed in December 2024 by white paper requirements, the market-abuse regime and the licensing framework for crypto-asset service providers (CASPs). Firms already operating under national law were given up to 18 months to secure authorisation. That window has now closed everywhere, with no extensions or national carve-outs.
The market impact is already visible. Only compliant stablecoins from authorised issuers can now be offered on EU venues, and USDT, the world’s largest stablecoin, has been progressively delisted for EU users after its issuer declined to pursue authorisation.
Meanwhile, an April 2026 analysis by Spain’s Agencia Tributaria, citing ESMA’s register, found more than 185 crypto-asset market operators had secured MiCA authorisation across the EU. Many firms unwilling or unable to make the compliance investment have exited the European market entirely.
Beneath the licensing headlines, MiCA is fundamentally an identity story. The Travel Rule, under Regulation (EU) 2023/1113, requires CASPs to collect, verify and transmit originator and beneficiary information on every qualifying transfer, regardless of amount.
ESMA has also made clear it expects authorised CASPs to apply robust onboarding processes as they absorb waves of users migrating from firms that have lost market access, with full AML/CFT compliance throughout.
This is where identity verification specialists such as Identomat come in. The firm combines ID document verification, biometric matching with liveness detection, transaction monitoring, risk assessment and AML screening covering sanctions, PEP and adverse media in a single automated pipeline, completing verification in seconds. Every check produces a timestamped evidence trail, ready for regulators on demand.
With the rulebook complete, the emphasis now shifts to supervision and enforcement. The licence was the entry ticket; ongoing compliance is the game.
Read the full Identomat post here.
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