Bankless · Thursday, July 16, 2026
The implementation of MiCA regulations in Europe has led to significant shifts, with major exchanges like Binance and Bybit facing challenges in compliance, creating a gap in the market. This is seen as a tailwind for on-chain services, encouraging users to explore decentralized alternatives.
“So I think that was like, that was like a massive sort of, you know, tailwind for the on chain spaces. All of a sudden there's like, you know, people who didn't want to move before because like the, you know, it's additional friction and like, why would they all of a sudden are looking for a home? And so like, it's an opportunity basically for them to consider like, oh, maybe on chain has actually become, you know, just a competitive product in a lot of ways. And this is an opportunity to do that. So”
“Definitely the biggest news there was some of the exchanges and the moves that they had to make. So like the Binance, they were not able to secure their license before that timeline. I do expect they will get it eventually, but who knows? And so, yeah, I guess if you're an EU user, you currently do not have access to Binance, which is pretty massive given that they are the number one exchange, or at least were the number one exchange in the EU.”
“And then I think the second biggest news that I saw there was like, so Bybit, which does have an EU and micro-registered entity. But that entity, they had to move users over to it, which creates some friction. And then they also, they don't have perpetual swaps, which is obviously a very popular product that they offer. And so like the two of those together, like actually left kind of, I think like a pretty massive, you know, massive gap where like you had all of these people, that all of a sudden needed to either move to a Mika registered exchange or needed to start looking on chain at some of the different products.”