Kraken has become the first major global crypto exchange to secure a full Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) license through the Central Bank of Ireland, enabling the company to offer regulated digital asset services across all 30 European Economic Area (EEA) countries.
The license, granted June 26, positions Kraken ahead of the European Union’s year-end MiCA compliance deadline for crypto asset service providers.
The license grants authorization for all seven regulated crypto activities under MiCA, including custody, trading, portfolio management, and payments. It folds Kraken’s existing virtual asset service provider (VASP) registrations in France, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands under a single regulatory umbrella.
Per Kraken’s announcement, the approval establishes the firm’s legal basis to continue operating across the bloc amid MiCA’s provisions on crypto exchanges.
MiCA, enacted in June 2023, establishes the EU’s first comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets. It provides a unified set of rules replacing 27 national systems. While its stablecoin provisions took effect June 30, 2024, core exchange and custodial rules became binding at the end of last year. Crypto firms that failed to obtain authorization faced a sunset period through July 2026, depending on local transpositions.
Kraken’s license arrives just days after Coinbase secured its own MiCA license via Luxembourg’s Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier. The timing highlights an accelerated push by major U.S. exchanges to lock in regulatory clarity within Europe, even though SEC-driven clarity has emerged at home. The pair’s approvals should yield strategic advantages, including passporting rights, streamlined onboarding, and market access ahead of a competitive backlog.
Kraken’s European business already accounts for roughly 25 percent of its global spot volume. The same update cited over 35 percent of euro-denominated crypto liquidity flowing through Kraken, metrics that likely informed the firm’s regulatory roadmap.
In 2024, Kraken denied phasing out five stablecoins, including Tether’s USDT, from EEA users to preemptively align Kraken’s offerings with MiCA’s stablecoin rules, which prohibit unauthorized issuers and limit exposure thresholds. However, by February 2025, this had changed, and non-MiCA-compliant stablecoins were delisted and converted in March.
In parallel, Kraken also acquired a Cyprus-based entity to secure a Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) license, giving the firm permission to offer regulated crypto derivatives in the EU. That license, announced February 3, enables Kraken to provide futures and margin products under investment firm rules, placing it among a small cohort of exchanges targeting both spot and derivatives markets under compliant frameworks.
While Kraken’s MiCA license formally unlocks passporting rights, those rights are activated only once the Central Bank of Ireland uploads the authorization to the European Securities and Markets Authority’s (ESMA) central CASP register. The timing of that upload could vary. Meanwhile, some national regulators may impose additional anti-money laundering checks, which could introduce local onboarding frictions even under the harmonized regime.
Regulatory clarity around crypto activities is gaining traction as MiCA’s sunsetting period comes to a close. ESMA has called on crypto firms to delist non-compliant tokens and prepare for robust technical standards expected to evolve through 2025. For exchanges like Kraken and Coinbase, securing a MiCA license early may limit future disruptions, ease institutional onboarding, and offer stable legal ground for expansion.
The firm’s co-CEO Arjun Sethi said the license “affirms Kraken’s commitment to building for the long term,” adding that it “places us in a strong position to expand our product offering.”
Mentioned in this article
Credit: Source link
