MiCA review starts with only 7% licensed

TLDR

The EU has begun a formal MiCA review while only about 7% of EU crypto providers have secured the new licenses they will need to keep operating.

1. MiCA requires all EU Virtual Asset Service Providers to obtain a CASP license by 1 July 2026, yet only 210 of roughly 2,747 firms are licensed so far.
2. The low licensing rate reflects complex new capital, governance and AML rules that favor larger, better funded players and could force smaller platforms to exit or relocate.
3. For EU users, the next year is a transition period to watch for service restrictions, consolidation into a smaller set of regulated providers and possible rule tweaks from the MiCA review.

Deep Dive

1. What Has Actually Happened

According to one recent analysis, less than six months before MiCA fully applies, only around 7% of EU crypto firms have obtained a MiCA-compliant Crypto Asset Service Provider (CASP) license, roughly 210 out of 2,747 registered VASPs across the bloc.

MiCA, adopted in 2023, sets a single rulebook for crypto across all 27 EU member states and makes licensing mandatory for exchanges, brokers, custodians and similar services that want to serve EU residents.

At the same time, the European Commission has launched a formal MiCA review that will assess how the rules are working, their unintended effects and whether changes are needed, including how MiCA interacts with other EU regimes such as DORA and how it should treat DeFi and NFTs.

2. Why Only 7% Are Licensed

MiCA raises the bar on several fronts: capital requirements, internal governance, custody controls, and strict anti money laundering and counter terror finance procedures. Smaller firms can struggle to fund this compliance build out.

Licensing also runs through national regulators, which face heavy workloads and may prioritize larger, systemically important firms first, delaying approvals for smaller platforms.

This combination tends to advantage big exchanges and TradFi backed entrants, and it likely pushes some niche or lightly capitalized platforms to either wind down EU operations or try to structure activities outside MiCAs scope.

3. What EU Users And Firms Should Watch

Until the 1 July 2026 deadline, many existing platforms can still operate under transition regimes, but users should watch for announcements about license approvals, partial service suspensions or complete EU exits.

The MiCA review could adjust how strictly DeFi front ends, NFT marketplaces or stablecoin issuers are treated, which would affect available products and which tokens remain accessible on EU venues.

If licensing remains concentrated among a relatively small group of large providers, the EU market could become safer and more standardized, but also less diverse, with more power in the hands of a few regulated hubs.

Conclusion

MiCAs review starting with only 7% of firms licensed highlights a gap between regulatory ambition and industry readiness that will shape the EU crypto landscape over the next year. The outcome will likely be a more controlled, institution friendly market with fewer but more heavily supervised providers. For users and projects that care about EU access, the key is to track who actually secures a CASP license and how the review adjusts the perimeter around DeFi, NFTs and stablecoins.