Fewer Than 300 Made the Cut: Ivan Nevzorov on MiCA, CASP Licensing, and What’s Next for Crypto Firms

Of the more than 3,000 companies that were legally serving crypto clients across the EU as recently as this June, fewer than 300 hold the right to do so today, according to CASP Tracker. The reason is the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), which took full effect across the European Union on 1 July 2026: from that date, only a company holding Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) authorisation — granted by a regulator in one EU member state and passported across the rest of the bloc — can serve EU clients. Companies that previously operated under national Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) registrations had exactly until that date to convert. Most didn’t. We talked to Ivan Nevzorov, CEO at SBSB Fintech Lawyers, about what’s actually left for them now — and why the shortcuts most of them reach for first usually aren’t the ones that hold up. Let’s start with the obvious one. A company still doesn’t have a CASP licence today — what happens to it now? Ivan Nevzorov: Look, here’s the thing people don’t want to hear: the deadline’s already passed. From July 1st, every day you keep serving EU clients without authorisation is a day you’re in breach of MiCA — a minimum €5 million fine under Article 111, and in France it can mean criminal liability for whoever’s responsible. So the answer everyone expects to hear, “just go get licensed,” isn’t actually on the table anymore for a company operating today. You can’t file an application, keep the lights on for months while it gets reviewed, and call that compliance. Which really leaves two paths. One, you wind down, because the business can’t meet the new standard. Two, you relocate — move your base to a friendlier jurisdiction. Though that one only keeps you legal if you stop marketing into the EU completely and let clients come to you on their own, what’s called reverse solicitation. Keep advertising to EU users from outside the bloc, and you’re breaking the exact same rule, just from a different address. We’ll come back to relocating, because it’s genuinely its own conversation. Let’s start with winding down, since that’s where most of these companies actually are right now — and honestly, it’s painful to watch, because most of them didn’t do anything wrong. They just didn’t get there in time, and for a lot of them, the reasons had nothing to do with how good their compliance actually was. Winding down sounds like the more straightforward path, at least. Is it actually? Ivan Nevzorov: Not as straightforward as people think, and there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. The wrong wa