European cryptocurrency users are showing greater confidence in platforms that operate under official authorization, according to remarks from a senior executive at the Austrian exchange Bitpanda.
Christian Trummer, the firm’s co-chief executive, made the observation while recently sharing key insights with news media outlets. He argued that the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, widely known as MiCA, has shifted ordinary investor and trader preferences toward licensed providers.
Trummer stated that most people now place more faith in regulated market participants and are willing to trust those platforms after the rulebook took effect.
He drew a sharp distinction between this broader audience and what he called a Crypto Twitter bubble preoccupied with self-custody.
In his view, the majority of users would rather rely on an authorized intermediary than hold and manage their own private keys.The executive also pressed for tighter application of the rules.
He said enforcement remains uneven, allowing certain firms to keep offering services to customers inside Europe even though they do not hold the required MiCA license.
That gap, he contended, leaves compliant businesses at a competitive disadvantage because they bear the costs of authorization, capital requirements, and operational controls while others continue without them.
His assessment was direct: regulators have not applied the framework strictly enough, since other market participants still serve European clients without meeting the licensing standard.
The comments arrive after a key transitional window closed. MiCA’s grandfathering arrangements for crypto-asset service providers already active in the market ended no later than 1 July.
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) instructed national supervisors to act against unauthorized entities that kept providing crypto services once their applicable transition periods expired.
ESMA has subsequently urged stronger supervisory tools to tackle both unauthorized activity and firms based outside the bloc that solicit investors in the European Union without MiCA authorization.
MiCA was designed to replace a patchwork of national approaches with a single set of obligations covering issuance, trading, custody, and related services across the European Economic Area.
Firms that obtain authorization can passport those permissions throughout the region, while those that do not are expected to stop serving local customers once transitional protections lapse.
Bitpanda itself has pursued the relevant permissions, positioning the platform among the operators that can lawfully continue cross-border activity under the new regime.
Trummer’s remarks highlight a practical tension that has followed the rulebook’s full application.
On one side, licensed platforms report that clearer standards appear to reassure retail users who want regulated custody and exchange services.
On the other, incomplete enforcement can blunt that advantage if noncompliant rivals remain accessible.
The co-chief executive’s comments therefore frame MiCA less as a finished project and more as a framework whose market effects still depend on consistent supervision by national authorities and on any expanded powers ESMA has requested.
For investors and traders deciding where to hold or trade digital assets inside Europe, the distinction between authorized and unauthorized providers has become more consequential since the July cutoff. It now remains to be seen if that distinction continues to shape behavior. It will most likely depend in part on how actively regulators close remaining gaps, a point Trummer placed at the center of his assessment.
