321 CASP licences in the EU, and Poland is still on zero

ESMA's register today lists 321 authorised crypto-asset service providers. That is the complete list of firms allowed to custody, trade or sell crypto legally across the EU and the EEA: 26 national supervisors, 30 markets, 321 names. One month after the transitional period closed, that is the whole European playing field.

Germany 66, France 35, the Netherlands 29

Germany leads by a wide margin with 66 authorisations, granted by BaFin. France follows with 35 (AMF), the Netherlands with 29 (AFM), Cyprus with 25 and Malta with 22. After that it thins out fast: Spain 15 (CNMV), Luxembourg 13, Ireland 12, Liechtenstein 12 and Austria 11.

That ranking says less about the size of each national market than you might expect. Malta and Cyprus together hold 47 authorisations between fewer than two million residents. What counts is how quickly a competent authority works through files and how predictable that process is — and on that point a handful of small member states have deliberately positioned themselves.

Greece, Poland, Hungary and Romania are on zero

In several EU countries the competent authority has not yet granted a single MiCA authorisation. Greece, Poland, Hungary and Romania sit at zero in the register. That does not mean you cannot buy crypto there: an authorisation from one member state can be passported across the whole bloc. A Polish user trades as normal — their platform is simply supervised by BaFin, the AMF or the Cypriot authority rather than by the KNF.

That difference is not a formality. It decides which body you can turn to when something goes wrong, in which language your complaint is handled, and which national law governs the custody arrangements.

From more than 1,200 down to 321

Before MiCA, more than 1,200 crypto firms were registered in the EU under the old national anti-money-laundering regimes. By May, around 210 of them held a full MiCA authorisation; today the count is 321. Even with that growth, roughly a quarter of the old registrations have converted into an authorisation.

The rest have not all vanished. Some were absorbed into a larger platform, others now serve the EU under a parent company's authorisation. But part of the field simply stopped. BitMart closed at the end of July after nine years, and card issuer Kulipa switched off 120,000 crypto cards in one go. Those are the costs of a filter doing exactly what it was built to do.

What to do with this

Three things are practical.

First, check which entity of your platform actually appears in the register. Large names often run several European entities offering different services, and one entity's authorisation does not automatically cover another.

Second, check which services that authorisation covers. Custody, trading and order execution are separate categories. A platform authorised for custody is not thereby allowed to give investment advice.

And keep the last one in mind: an authorisation is supervision, not a guarantee. It means capital requirements, custody rules and a complaints procedure apply. It says nothing about price risk, and it compensates no losses.

Sources: ESMA CASP register (updated 3 August 2026), MiCA (Regulation (EU) 2023/1114), Euronews, BaFin, AMF, AFM, CNMV, KNF. Last checked: 3 August 2026.