Licensed exchanges are handing out bonuses that CFD brokers have been banned from offering for eight years

Since MiCA's transitional period finally closed on 1 July, the European crypto market has changed in two ways. There are fewer providers, because anyone who failed to obtain an authorisation had to shut the door. And the providers that remain are fighting harder for the same client. Right now that fight is being waged with money: deposit bonuses, cashback and prize draws. Precisely the instrument that CFD providers in Europe have been barred from using since 2018.

Four authorised firms, four campaigns

Kraken opened proceedings with a one million euro prize draw running from 19 June to 31 July. Every euro deposited earns one entry, which puts the structure closer to a lottery than to a discount.

Bybit EU is offering cashback on deposits between 22 June and 31 July, up to 3 per cent annualised, from a deposit of 50,000 dollars (roughly €43,750) upwards. Malta is excluded from the promotion. That detail stands out, because Malta is the very member state that has issued a large share of Europe's CASP authorisations.

OKX started on 29 June with an 8 per cent bonus on net deposits, capped at €20,000, also running to 31 July.

Coinbase takes a different route and attaches the bonus to its subscription: Coinbase One members receive a 5 per cent bonus on crypto they transfer to the platform.

Four campaigns, four expressions of the same idea: pay the client to move their balance here. All four target the European Economic Area, and all four hold a MiCA authorisation that lets them serve that entire area at once.

What CFD brokers have been banned from since 2018

For another category of provider, this behaviour has been off limits for eight years. In 2018 ESMA adopted product intervention measures on CFDs which explicitly prohibited firms offering these products to retail clients from providing 'monetary and non-monetary benefits' for opening an account, funding it or trading. National competent authorities including the AFM, the FSMA and BaFin made that measure permanent in their own rulebooks in 2019.

The reasoning at the time was behavioural rather than moral. A bonus tied to a deposit pushes the client towards a larger amount than they intended. A bonus tied to trading volume pushes them towards more transactions than they need. Supervisors saw that link reflected in the loss figures on retail CFD accounts, and intervened.

What MiCA is silent about

MiCA requires a CASP to act 'honestly, fairly and professionally' in the client's best interest, and prescribes that marketing communications be fair, clear and not misleading. What it does not contain is any restriction on deposit bonuses, cashback or prize draws for retail clients. There is no article that does for crypto what ESMA's 2018 measure did for CFDs.

That is not legislative carelessness but a consequence of how the regulation is built. MiCA is first and foremost a regime for authorisation, conduct of business and disclosure. The product intervention power ESMA used in 2018 sits with MiFID II and its accompanying regulation, not with MiCA. An authorised exchange falls outside it.

The result is a peculiar asymmetry. Two providers can sell a leveraged product to the same Dutch or German retail investor, with one forbidden from mentioning any bonus at all and the other free to run a one million euro prize draw. The difference lies not in the risk to the client but in which regulatory framework the product happens to sit under.

Why it is erupting now

The timing is too precise to be coincidence. Three of the four campaigns launched in the last two weeks of June, just before the transitional period closed on 1 July. That was the moment it became clear which firms were through and which were not, and therefore which client books were about to come loose.

For an authorised firm that is a one-off window. Clients of a provider that has stopped must park their balance somewhere else, and whoever puts the largest amount on the table at that moment captures the deposit. An 8 per cent bonus up to €20,000 is measurably more expensive than an advertising campaign, but it lands with certainty on someone who is already about to move.

One authorisation, thirty markets

Then there is the passporting advantage. One authorisation gives access to thirty markets, so a campaign that works in a single country can be rolled out across the whole EEA immediately. That drives the cost per acquired client sharply down, and raises the amount a provider can rationally spend.

The arithmetic is straightforward. Eight per cent capped at €20,000 costs the provider at most 1,600 euros per client, and only for someone who deposits the maximum. A prize draw is cheaper still: the cost is fixed at one million euros whether a thousand or a hundred thousand people enter. So whoever is betting hardest on volume picks the draw, and whoever is betting on large balances picks the percentage bonus — and Bybit, with its 50,000 dollar (roughly €43,750) threshold, makes that choice most explicit.

What this means for you

Always convert a bonus back into what it nets you. Eight per cent on a 5,000 euro deposit is 400 euros, but if the platform charges 0.4 per cent per trade against 0.1 per cent elsewhere, active trading erases that difference within months. Read the conditions attached to unlocking the bonus as well: a minimum holding period, a trading volume threshold or the exclusion of your own country are all common, and Bybit excludes Malta outright.

More importantly, do not let the bonus set your amount. That is exactly the mechanism ESMA moved against in 2018 for CFDs, and it works no differently in crypto. If you planned to deposit 2,000 euros, then 8 per cent of 2,000 euros is the honest comparison, not 8 per cent of 20,000 euros.

Finally, mind the end date. Three of the four promotions expire on 31 July, so anyone who wants to act has days rather than weeks. Whether this becomes a lasting pattern depends on whether national competent authorities decide to extend the 2018 investor protection argument to authorised CASPs after all.

Sources: Finance Magnates (10 July 2026), ESMA product intervention measures on CFDs (2018), Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 (MiCA), promotion terms from Kraken, Bybit EU, OKX and Coinbase. Last checked: 29 July 2026.