Twenty-three days remain. On June 30, 2026, the MiCA transitional period ends: every crypto exchange serving European Union customers must hold a valid CASP — a Crypto-Asset Service Provider licence issued by a recognised national competent authority and notified to ESMA. Without it, the exchange cannot legally operate in Europe.
The official ESMA register currently lists 234 authorised CASPs across Europe. Bitget is not among them.
That's not for lack of trying. The exchange filed an application with Austria's Financial Market Authority (FMA) during 2025, publicly targeting approval in Q2 2026 — a deadline that passed on May 31 without any announcement. Meanwhile, direct competitors have already crossed the line: Bybit EU GmbH obtained its CASP from the same FMA Austria on May 28, 2025, a full year ahead of the final deadline.
On the surface, this looks like bureaucratic delay. But look closer and three details make the Bitget case something more: an Italian entity in liquidation that retains its VASP registration despite zero employees and zero revenue; a European CEO whose most recent EU regulatory experience ended with a regulator-imposed ban on new clients; and a business model — the broker structure — that no exchange of this scale has yet attempted in post-MiCA Europe.
The Deadline That Changes Everything: MiCA's Final Phase
June 30, 2026 is not a symbolic date. It marks the end of the MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets, EU Regulation 2023/1114) transitional period for crypto-asset service providers. After that date, anyone providing trading, custody or transfer services to EU citizens must operate under a valid CASP, issued by a competent authority in a member state and notified to ESMA.
A CASP is not a rubber-stamp upgrade of an existing VASP registration. It is a full first-tier licence with substantial obligations: minimum regulatory capital between €50,000 and €150,000 depending on services offered, internal governance requirements, client asset segregation, AML/KYC compliance verified by the competent authority, and periodic reporting requirements. For large exchanges, the real cost of compliance — legal counsel, IT systems, compliance staffing, capital adequacy — runs into millions of euros.
Until June 30, exchanges with a pre-MiCA national VASP registration in any member state can continue operating under the transitional arrangement. From July 1, that arrangement ends. Only the CASP counts.
France's AMF has already moved to enforcement mode. President Marie-Anne Barbat-Layani has announced that approximately ninety exchanges active in France will be blacklisted from June 30 if they haven't obtained a CASP. The most revealing figure: forty percent of operators registered in France's pre-MiCA VASP list have not even submitted a conversion application. This isn't delay — it's a deliberate choice not to comply.
The ESMA register, updated as of May 28, 2026, counts 234 authorised CASPs: exchanges, custodians, brokers, token issuers. The 234 already authorised represent the portion of the market that chose compliance. The remainder — unknown in size, but estimated in the hundreds — must choose before June 30: obtain the licence, exit the European market, or ignore the rules and risk national blacklisting. Among the notable absences from the register: Bitget.
Bitget in Europe: The Pre-MiCA Licence Map
Before Vienna, there was a lengthy series of national authorisations. Bitget built its European presence through available national VASP registrations: Lithuania, Poland, Italy, the United Kingdom, and finally, on February 14, 2025, Bulgaria.
On that date, Bitget's Chief Legal Officer Hon Ng issued a press release via GlobeNewswire describing the Bulgarian National Revenue Agency VASP licence as "part of Bitget's expansion strategy to serve users across the European Union" and Bulgaria as a "strategic gateway for our European expansion." The key phrase was already there: "we are actively preparing for compliance with the EU's MiCA framework."
On the Austrian front, Bitget EU GmbH established its headquarters in Vienna in January 2026 and formally applied for a CASP from the FMA. Publicly stated target: Q2 2026. That quarter closed on May 31, 2026.
The FMA does not publish lists of pending applications. It is not possible to know from the outside how far along Bitget's application is, whether the submission has been deemed formally complete — the trigger for the official review clock — or whether supplementary documents have been requested that extend the timeline. The FMA's estimated review time for a formally complete application is forty to sixty working days. With June 30 less than four weeks away, the window is closing.
Evergreencrest Italy: The Licence of a Company That No Longer Exists
This is where the story thickens.
Italy's OAM — the Organismo Agenti e Mediatori, which maintains the Italian register of virtual currency service providers and is publicly searchable at organismo-am.it — lists, under registration number PSV91, the following entity: EVERGREENCREST ITALY S.R.L. IN LIQUIDAZIONE (in liquidation). Registration date: January 31, 2023. Registered website: www.bitgetx.it.
"In liquidation" is not a minor footnote. It means the company is formally in the process of dissolution and winding down. We verified the balance sheet data filed for fiscal year 2025: revenue of zero euros. Zero employees. Negative net equity of minus forty-two thousand euros.
The website bitgetx.it is unreachable. The domain does not resolve — it returns an unknown host error. There is, in practice, no functioning web presence attached to Italy's registered VASP operator for Bitget.
Yet in the OAM register, Evergreencrest Italy S.R.L. still carries the status "ISCRITTA" — registered and active.
How is this possible? A company's entry into liquidation does not automatically trigger removal from the OAM register. The entity retains its registration until an explicit cancellation is ordered, or until the liquidation procedure concludes with the company's deletion from the Companies Register. In the interim — a process that can take years — the OAM register displays an apparently "authorised" operator with zero employees, zero revenue, and an offline website.
Italian users accessing Bitget via bitget.com are not interacting with Evergreencrest Italy. Bitget serves European clients through its global corporate structure — and, once a CASP is obtained, will do so through Bitget EU GmbH in Vienna. Evergreencrest Italy was the local Italian presence. That presence no longer exists operationally.
The broader question is systemic: the OAM mechanism has no automatic update triggered by a registered entity entering liquidation. The regulatory gap leaves a ghost VASP on the register — zero employees, zero operations, offline website.
Vienna, the FMA Application and the Missed Q2 Target
The FMA is not an arbitrary choice of jurisdiction. It has become the reference point for European CASPs: it already authorised Bybit EU GmbH (May 2025), KuCoin EU Exchange GmbH (November 2025), and numerous smaller entities. Vienna has emerged as the informal capital of MiCA compliance for international exchanges targeting Europe — partly because the FMA has demonstrated relative procedural efficiency compared to other national authorities.
Yet the FMA publishes no list of pending applications. The timeline is opaque: no external party can confirm whether Bitget's application has been deemed formally complete, triggering the forty-to-sixty working day review clock, or whether the regulator has requested additional documentation. With June 30 less than four weeks away, the arithmetic is tight.
Pending authorisation, Bitget has already declared it will "refrain from offering services in the European Economic Area until the relevant authorisation is obtained" — phrasing that explicitly acknowledges the transitional period is ending.
Oliver Stauber: The Man Who Has Seen Two European CASPs Up Close
The person leading Bitget's CASP application to the FMA Austria is Oliver Stauber, appointed CEO of Bitget EU GmbH on January 28, 2026.
Bitget's official announcement described him as a "Bitpanda veteran" — a reference to his previous role as Chief Legal Officer at the Austrian exchange. Accurate, but incomplete. Before Bitget, Stauber served as Managing Director of KuCoin EU Exchange GmbH — KuCoin's European subsidiary, headquartered in Vienna, regulated by the same FMA Austria.
The chronological record is documented:
November 27, 2025: FMA Austria grants a CASP to KuCoin EU Exchange GmbH. Oliver Stauber is Managing Director.
February 19, 2026: The same FMA issues a prohibition order against KuCoin EU GmbH, banning the acquisition of new clients. Official grounds: organisational deficiencies in AML compliance, with both the AML Officer and the Sanctions Compliance Officer roles having become vacant following resignations.
Late February/early March 2026: Stauber exits KuCoin EU GmbH.
January 28, 2026: Stauber had already been announced as CEO of Bitget EU GmbH — the two announcements overlap temporally, with Bitget's press release in late January and the FMA prohibition arriving in mid-February.
We are not asserting that Stauber bears personal responsibility for KuCoin EU's AML deficiencies. The FMA did not name individuals in its public communication, and KuCoin has appealed the measure while partially rebuilding its compliance structure (new AMLO Carmen Kleinhans appointed April 2026). What the documented record shows is that the person now representing Bitget before the FMA Austria is already known to that authority from a prior file — one that concluded, provisionally, with a prohibition order.
The FMA knows Oliver Stauber. Stauber knows the FMA. Whether this familiarity represents a negotiating advantage or an awkward precedent is, for now, impossible to determine.
The Broker Model: The Bet No One Has Placed Yet
There is one element of Bitget's European strategy that has attracted relatively little commentary. When CoinTelegraph interviewed Stauber in late January 2026, the CEO described Bitget EU's intended operating model with unusual precision: the Austrian entity will operate as a broker, not an exchange.
The distinction is structural. An exchange connects buyers and sellers on an open market. A broker acts as the direct counterparty to every client transaction, sourcing liquidity from independent providers. For the user, the outcome — buying or selling crypto — looks identical. The legal structure, risk management obligations, and counterparty exposure sitting on the other side are fundamentally different.
Under MiCA, both models fall within the CASP definition — but capital adequacy requirements, market risk management, and best execution obligations are calibrated differently for a broker versus a pure exchange. The broker model has regulatory logic: it reduces exposure to fragmented counterparty risk, simplifies reporting structures, and concentrates liability in a single legal entity.
It is also a model that Bitget's European user base has never experienced at this scale — and one for which no consolidated MiCA supervisory precedents yet exist. It is a well-structured regulatory bet, but a bet nonetheless.
Who Has Already Crossed the Line
The ESMA register, downloaded on May 28, 2026, provides the most current available picture.
Bybit EU GmbH is the benchmark: CASP from FMA Austria dated May 28, 2025, registration number FN 636180i, European passport active across all 29 EEA states. It moved a full year ahead of the deadline. Bybit's CEO has publicly acknowledged that profitability in post-MiCA Europe is harder than anticipated — but the licence exists.
Bitvavo (Netherlands), Coinbase EU (Ireland), Kraken via Payward Europe, and Bitpanda (Austria) are all operational under valid CASPs. OKX obtained its licence in Malta. Spain's CNMV list of passported operators includes over one hundred entities — none of which is Bitget.
KuCoin EU Exchange GmbH is the edge case. The CASP is technically active in the ESMA register (FMA Austria, November 27, 2025). But since February 19, 2026, the FMA has prohibited it from acquiring new clients for the reasons described above. KuCoin has rebuilt its AML structure and is pursuing an administrative appeal. Existing clients continue to operate; no new European user can register.
This is the closest existing precedent to the scenario Bitget might face — with the crucial difference that KuCoin had already obtained its CASP before the prohibition arrived, while Bitget has not yet obtained a CASP at all.
Three Scenarios for June 30: What European Users Should Know
With the deadline under a month away, three trajectories are open for Bitget.
Scenario A — The CASP arrives in time. The FMA approves Bitget EU GmbH's application before June 30. The European passport is notified to ESMA. The exchange continues operating without interruption for European users. Bitget EU becomes the first major platform to operate in the EU market under a broker-model MiCA CASP. For users: no practical impact.
Scenario B — Technical extension. Some EU jurisdictions may grant short national extensions to operators with a pending application before a competent authority. This is not a right guaranteed by MiCA, but it is a precedent from other European regulatory transitions. Under this scenario, Bitget could continue operating pending formal process completion.
Scenario C — Temporary exit from the EU market. If the CASP does not arrive by June 30 and no extension is available, Bitget would need to suspend services to EU resident clients. This is not necessarily permanent — but it would mean blocking new deposits, suspending trading for EU residents and potentially forcing the liquidation of open derivatives positions.
Bitget has already stated its position clearly: it will "refrain from offering services in the European Economic Area until the relevant authorisation is obtained." This is legal compliance language, not an operational announcement — but it reflects explicit awareness of the regulatory exposure.
European users holding assets on Bitget should monitor official communications carefully over the coming weeks. MiCA-compliant alternatives are operational and accessible: Bitvavo for users across the Netherlands and central Europe, Kraken EU for those prioritising security track record, Coinbase EU for a straightforward interface, Bybit EU for a full product range with complete MiCA compliance.
Conclusion
The Bitget case says something broader about Europe's crypto transition. This is not the story of a fraudulent exchange or a company running from regulation. It is the story of a platform with one hundred million global users that built its European presence through pre-MiCA national licences — Bulgaria, Italy, Poland, Lithuania — only to find that scaffolding does not bear the weight of a CASP.
The Italian entity in liquidation with zero employees, the missed Q2 target, the CEO's European track record: these are fragments of a picture that remains unfinished. The CASP could arrive tomorrow. Or it may not arrive before June 30.
What we know for certain is that the deadline waits for no one. And that the ESMA register, with its 234 names, does not yet include Bitget's.
The data was all public. Someone just had to read it all together.
Sources: OAM register organismo-am.it (PSV91, Evergreencrest Italy S.r.l. in liquidation); ESMA CASP Register CSV downloaded 28/05/2026 (234 authorised CASPs); FMA Austria prohibition order KuCoin EU Exchange GmbH 19/02/2026; CoinTelegraph interview with Oliver Stauber 28/01/2026; GlobeNewswire press release Bitget Bulgaria VASP 14/02/2025; AMF France statement by President Marie-Anne Barbat-Layani; Evergreencrest Italy S.r.l. financial statements FY2025 (xrayfinance.it); CNMV list of passported operators in Spain (May 2026 consultation)