The European crypto-licensing machine is decelerating. According to reporting by CoinTelegraph, the European Securities and Markets Authority added just 14 crypto-asset service providers to its MiCA register on July 16, a marked slowdown from the 37 firms approved in the first major post-deadline batch last month.
The update brings total MiCA-licensed providers to 294, with notable entrants including Ripple Payments Europe — the blockchain payments firm’s EU operational arm — Portugal’s Bison Bank, and Croatia’s state-owned postal bank. The modest pace suggests that the initial rush to comply with Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation has given way to a more measured approval cycle.
Ripple and Traditional Banks Lead Adoption
Ripple’s European licensing marks a significant milestone for the San Francisco-based firm, which has faced regulatory scrutiny globally but is now operating within the EU’s formal oversight framework. The move underscores how major blockchain infrastructure companies are moving beyond decentralised positioning to embed themselves within traditional financial regulation.
Banks are the real story here. Alongside Ripple, four new financial institutions joined the register: two German cooperative banks (Volksbank Schwarzwald-Donau-Neckar and Raiffeisenbank Auerbach-Freihung), Liechtenstein’s Kaiser Partner Privatbank, and the Croatian postal bank. The MiCA register now counts dozens of traditional lenders — Spain’s BBVA and CaixaBank, Germany’s Commerzbank, France’s CACEIS Bank, and Standard Chartered Luxembourg among them.
This institutional migration tells us something important: MiCA is not attracting marginal players. It’s drawing the backbone of European finance into regulated crypto services, a structural shift that legitimises digital assets as a banking concern rather than a speculative sideshow.
Stablecoins and Non-Compliance Remain Stalled
The broader MiCA apparatus shows less movement elsewhere. ESMA reported no new approvals for electronic money token (EMT) issuers, which are designed to maintain stable value against a single currency. The EMT register remains at 21 unique issuers. The asset-referenced token (ART) register, for multi-asset-backed tokens, continues to list zero approved issuers — a particularly notable gap given the appetite for such instruments.
On the enforcement side, ESMA added two firms to its non-compliant register following Italian securities regulator action: Reversal Investment Group and Kortex. The non-compliant list now totals 164 entries, including major exchange MEXC.
The slowdown in licensing after MiCA’s June 30 transitional deadline expiry suggests that regulators are moving from initial acceptance screening into more rigorous scrutiny. Expect approval rates to stabilise at a lower, more deliberate pace.