Crypto Firms Rush for MiCA Approval—But Guess Who’s Missing? 😂

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In the grand theater of European finance, it was with a certain weary inevitability—much as the first pale snows descend upon Moscow in November—that Patrick Hansen, high-ranking Circle dignitary, found himself peering over a stack of ESMA’s latest data on the 7th of July. Lo, it proclaimed: 53 crypto enterprises, armed to the teeth with MiCA licenses, now roamed freely from Lisbon to Vilnius, all thanks to this freshly-minted doctrine of “passporting.” Ah, to stride across borders like a 19th-century aristocrat, and without so much as a customs official raising an eyebrow!

And what a curious collection of financial heroes and wiseguys populate this new landscape! Especially notable: 14 firms clutching letters patent to conjure into existence what they call “stablecoins.” Among these, Circle itself, Crypto.com (no relation to Dostoyevsky, regrettably), Stablemint, and—lest anyone harbor doubts that the French lack a sense of humor—Société Générale now possess state sanctification to issue fiat-backed wonders and e-money tokens. Their stablecoins, numbering some 20, cling to the euro like Tolstoyan peasants to their humble loaves—though a few nostalgic coins glance toward the dollar, and the boldest dream, inexplicably, of Czech koruna.

And yet—in a twist Chekhov himself might have chuckled at—Tether, sovereign of the USDT, remains outside the gates, like a peasant with suspicious papers at the Governor’s ball. Unprepared for MiCA’s exacting etiquette, Tether has already suffered exile: delisted, much like an ill-tempered noble, from polite salons such as Coinbase or Crypto.com. Oh, the cruelty of regulatory society!

MiCA’s net stretches further still: crypto exchanges and service purveyors, 39 in total, kneel for their regulatory benedictions in Germany, the Netherlands, Malta, and France. Here mingle fintech upstarts, staid old banks, and swashbuckling exchanges—Coinbase, Kraken, OKX, Robinhood—each seeking approval like suitors at a provincial ball. Binance, veritable tsar of exchanges, lingers in the antechamber, having freshly appointed a champion to navigate the EU’s labyrinth of bureaucracy. One day, perhaps, the doors will open, and Binance will waltz triumphantly into the regulatory soiree—until then, they practice the steps and wait, wait, wait. ⏳🕺

As MiCA tightens its embrace (some would say, a death grip), the EU dons the epaulettes of global crypto regulation. The rules multiply; order is imposed. And so, beneath the chandeliers of Brussels, compliant firms raise toasts of gratitude—while the unlicensed, left out in the digital snow, wonder where it all went wrong. Skol!

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2025-07-07 21:00