The UAE attracts EU crypto providers after MICA rejections
The enforcement of the European Union’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation has triggered a surge in relocation interest from crypto founders looking to move to the UAE with Neos Legal Firm in UAE receiving about 120 crypto licensing inquiries a week, with 50% of them coming in from Europe.
The enquiries are coming in from VASPs in Spain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and the UK. This comes as the EU Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) only licensed 244 crypto asset service providers (CASPs) out of 3,000 firms who had submitted for licenses.
Irina Heaver, a lawyer at NeosLegal in Dubai, said her law firm now receives more than 120 inquiries a week from European companies and founders. It surged amid rising costs, timing and uncertainty of securing a MiCA license.
“They’re looking to move themselves and their wealth and their ideas and their intellectual potential to a country that welcomes them.”
Notably, Germany leads with 57 licenses, and France is second with 26, accounting for more than one-third of the total licenses issued to crypto firms. Meanwhile, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, and Romania have not issued any MiCA licenses. Among leading crypto firms, Coinbase and Ripple have secured MiCA compliance.
Binance, Bitget, MEXC, and other crypto firms are no longer authorized to serve EU users, with trading and deposits set to stop.
All this comes as the UAE now has 102 licensed VASPs with 50% of them licensed by VARA Dubai.
