The European Union's crypto rulebook has quietly redrawn the map of who is allowed to operate. In an interview published July 21, 2026, legal specialist Ivan Nevzorov said that of the more than 3,000 companies legally serving crypto clients across the EU as recently as last year, fewer than 300 now hold the Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) license that the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation requires. That is a contraction of roughly 90% in the population of authorized firms.
The number lines up with the official tally. The EU's public register of MiCA-authorized providers has been climbing steadily through 2026, recently passing the 294-provider mark as more applicants clear national regulators. The gap between the 3,000 firms that used to operate under a patchwork of national rules and the few hundred that survived the transition is the story.
The mechanics behind the drop
MiCA replaced 27 different national frameworks with one authorization standard. Before it took full effect, a company could serve customers in a single member state under that state's local registration, or passport a light-touch approval across borders. A CASP license demands more: minimum capital, governance and custody standards, complaint handling, market-abuse controls, and detailed disclosures for any token it lists.
Most of the 3,000 firms never applied. Some were too small to absorb the compliance cost. Others were foreign operators who had reached EU users through a national loophole and chose to exit rather than build a European entity. A third group applied and is still waiting, since national regulators in Germany, France, and elsewhere have been working through backlogs that stretch application timelines well past a year.
The result is a market where a smaller set of better-capitalized firms now holds the keys. Nevzorov's framing is that MiCA did not fail. It did exactly what it was designed to do, which was to filter out operators that could not meet a single high bar.
Fewer names, more certainty
For European users, the shrinkage cuts both ways. The obvious cost is choice. Some exchanges, wallet apps, and card programs that once served customers in Germany, France, or smaller markets have pulled out or gone quiet, and the field of available providers is thinner than it was in 2024.
The offsetting gain is that a MiCA license is a real signal. A CASP-authorized firm has passed capital and custody checks, sits on a public register, and answers to a named national regulator. For anyone choosing where to hold funds or run day-to-day spending, that is a stronger baseline than the old system, where a "registered" label could mean almost anything from country to country.
This matters most for custodial products. When a provider holds your balance, its solvency is your risk, as FTX and Wirecard both showed. A CASP license does not guarantee a firm never fails, but it forces the segregation and capital rules that make a clean wind-down more likely. Users who prefer to sidestep that exposure entirely can look at self-custody card options, where the balance stays in a wallet the user controls rather than on a provider's books.
The card and payments angle
Crypto card issuers sit squarely inside MiCA's scope, since most run custody and exchange functions to convert a token balance into a fiat settlement at the point of sale. A card program serving EU residents now needs either its own CASP authorization or a licensed partner underneath it. That has already reshaped which crypto cards are cleanly available to European cardholders, and it explains why several issuers have leaned on regulated payment institutions rather than build the license stack themselves.
The consolidation also raises the barrier for new entrants. A startup that might once have launched a card in one member state and expanded later now faces the full CASP requirement before it can serve anyone in the bloc. That favors established players with legal budgets and slows the pace of new launches into the EU, even as demand for stablecoin spending and everyday crypto payments keeps growing.
Whether 300 firms is the floor or a waypoint is unsettled. National regulators are still processing applications, so the authorized count should keep rising through 2026. What will not return is the era of 3,000 lightly supervised operators. MiCA has set a single price of admission, and most of the old market decided it was not worth paying.
Overview
MiCA's CASP licensing regime has cut the number of firms legally serving EU crypto clients from more than 3,000 to fewer than 300, a roughly 90% contraction, according to legal specialist Ivan Nevzorov in a July 21, 2026 interview. The EU's official register recently passed 294 authorized providers. The trade-off for users is less choice against a stronger baseline of capital, custody, and disclosure standards, with the clearest impact on custodial products and crypto card programs that need a license or a licensed partner to serve European residents.
