In roughly eight days, MiCA's transitional period will come to an end.
From July 1, it will become increasingly difficult to provide crypto services in the EU without holding the appropriate MiCA authorization or operating under a clearly defined transitional regime. ESMA has made this point abundantly clear over the past several months.
And this is where things start to get interesting.
One side of the market believes that the largest international players will ultimately find a way through. They are large enough, strong enough, and have enough customers to adapt. The other side argues that we are about to find out whether there is really such a thing as TBTF – Too Big To Fail – in the crypto industry. 🤷🏻♂️😳
At the moment, regulators do not appear to be particularly concerned with how many millions of customers a provider has. What matters is whether the company complies with the rules. That is what makes this such a different era. A few years ago, crypto was largely about who could grow the fastest. Today, it is increasingly about who can operate sustainably within a regulated environment.
At the same time, another important debate continues in the background. Many market participants point to the well-known “reverse solicitation” exemption. In simple terms:
“I didn't approach the customer; the customer approached me.”
At first glance, that sounds straigh"tforward. However, ESMA has repeatedly indicated that "reverse solicitation" cannot serve as a general market entry or market retention strategy. It was not designed for firms to actively target European customers and later argue that "those customers approached them on their own initiative" ...and then there is the example of Poland 🇵🇱.
As the grandfathering period approaches its end, several industry participants continue to highlight practical questions surrounding licensing processes. Just eighteen months ago, more than 1,300 crypto service providers were active in the market and zero MiCA licenses issued.
The coming months are unlikely to be defined by a competition over who can market their services most aggressively. Instead, the key questions will be: Who can comply? Who can operate transparently? And who can build trust for the long term?
