WhiteBIT secures MiCA license in Austria ahead of July 1 EU deadline

WhiteBIT has received authorization under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) from Austria’s Financial Market Authority, giving it a single license it can passport across the European Economic Area. For PSPs and banks watching crypto risk, the detail that matters is simple: once a firm is inside MiCA, it can operate across the bloc without rebuilding the licensing stack country by country.

1. WhiteBIT said the authorization will support the launch of a dedicated European platform, whitebit.eu. Under MiCA, a crypto company authorized in one EU member state can passport its services across the European Economic Area without obtaining separate licenses in each jurisdiction.
2. The company said its parent, W Group, serves more than 35 million customers globally. WhiteBIT was founded in 2018 and says it has partnerships with Visa, FACEIT, FC Barcelona, Juventus and Ukraine’s national football team.
3. Austria did not extend grandfathering provisions for virtual asset service providers beyond Dec. 31, 2025, making it one of the first EU jurisdictions to fully transition to the MiCA framework. According to comments previously provided to Cointelegraph by Austria’s Financial Market Authority, the regulator has licensed nine crypto-asset service providers under MiCA and described application volume as “significant.”
4. WhiteBIT’s approval lands less than two weeks before the EU’s MiCA transition period expires on July 1. After that date, crypto firms operating under legacy national registrations must either hold a MiCA license or stop serving clients in the bloc.
5. The deadline is already forcing the issue for exchanges that have not secured authorization. Reuters reported this week that Greece’s market regulator was preparing to reject Binance’s MiCA application, while The Big Whale said France may be the exchange’s last remaining path to a MiCA license before the deadline.

OKX Europe told Cointelegraph that roughly 7.6 million of the 18.5 million crypto app downloads recorded in Europe between May 2025 and May 2026 were linked to exchanges that were not listed on public MiCA authorization registers. The European Securities and Markets Authority has said firms that remain unauthorized after July 1 should implement wind-down and client migration plans instead of continuing to operate while applications are still under review.