Headline: Standard Chartered Among 57 Firms to Win MiCA Passport as ESMA Register Jumps to 300
The European crypto landscape just took a major regulatory step forward. The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has added 57 newly authorized crypto firms to its interim register, bringing the total number of MiCA-authorized crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) to 300 — up from 243 on June 26 — after a wave of approvals clustered around the July 1 Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) deadline.
Key winners and what they gained
- Standard Chartered: The global bank secured MiCA authorization from Luxembourg’s regulator, the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF), on June 25. It also obtained an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license, enabling it to use MiCA’s passporting mechanism to offer regulated crypto services across all 27 EU member states without needing separate approvals country-by-country.
- FalconX: The institutional trading firm received authorization from Malta’s Financial Services Authority (MFSA) just ahead of the July 1 cutoff and was added to ESMA’s register.
- Other notable additions: digital asset bank Sygnum Europe, Ronin EM, and CACEIS (the asset servicing arm owned by Crédit Agricole and Santander) were all included in the latest update.
M&A and market moves
- CACEIS is reportedly in exclusive talks to acquire French retail crypto platform Meria — a business with about 150,000 users and roughly €350 million in assets under management — after Meria secured MiCA CASP authorization in France.
- Stripe-owned Bridge previously won both MiCA CASP authorization and an EMI license in Luxembourg, another example of non-bank players leveraging the passporting framework.
Why this matters
MiCA creates a single regulatory regime for exchanges, custody providers, portfolio managers and crypto-asset issuers across the EU. Under MiCA’s passport rules, authorization from one national regulator (for example, Luxembourg’s CSSF or Malta’s MFSA) grants access to customers across the entire bloc. The July 1, 2026 end of MiCA’s transitional period forced companies to either secure full authorization or halt onboarding and wind down regulated EU operations. ESMA’s updated register serves as the public record of who has completed that process.
Market consequences
Regulatory consolidation has already had immediate market effects. Notably, Tether’s $186 billion USDT lost a MiCA-compliant route to stay on regulated EU exchanges after the July 1 deadline. As a result, MiCA-authorized venues including Coinbase, Kraken and Crypto.com removed USDT trading for European users, removing the stablecoin from regulated order books in the EU despite its global scale.
Takeaway for institutions
For institutional investors and asset managers, ESMA’s expanding register now provides a single, verified reference for identifying regulated counterparties under the EU’s unified crypto framework. Passporting cuts red tape by reducing the need for firms to pursue separate national licenses — a structural change that is already reshaping where and how crypto services are offered in Europe.
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