- Published on
Bitcoin.de trading remains halted as German regulator rejects MiCA application
- Authors
- Name
- DeepHorus
Trading on German crypto platform bitcoin.de will remain suspended after the country's Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) rejected an application for authorization under the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA). Bitcoin Group SE announced the decision on October 6, saying its subsidiary futurum bank AG had been refused a license as a crypto-asset service provider. The company described the outcome as a setback but said it had prepared for the possibility of a refusal. It is now reviewing the decision and has the option to lodge an objection or submit a new application in the future. Trading on the platform has largely been halted since June 12 while authorization was pending.
Bitcoin.de is operated by futurum bank AG, a subsidiary of Bitcoin Group SE, and counts more than 1.1 million registered users. The platform originally launched as a peer-to-peer marketplace that matched buyers and sellers of crypto directly with one another. This year, the company revamped bitcoin.de to function as a brokerage, with planned offerings including more than 100 cryptocurrencies, crypto swaps, staking services and other products. The relaunch was originally expected in late June but was postponed as futurum bank awaited MiCA authorization.
In an August update, bitcoin.de told customers that their crypto holdings had already been migrated to new custody infrastructure and that its previous trading system had been switched off. Those technical preparations mean user assets are held separately even as the marketplace itself stays offline. The prolonged outage leaves more than a million registered users unable to trade through a platform they had previously used for peer-to-peer transactions.
Bitcoin Group SE said it is working on ways to resume trading through regulated partners "as quickly as possible." "Our priority now is to implement the alternative operating model and to keep our customers transparently informed about the next steps," said Moritz Eckert, CEO of Bitcoin Group SE. The company framed the partnership route as a practical response to the licensing refusal rather than an abandonment of its crypto business. Any alternative model would still need to satisfy MiCA requirements that govern crypto-asset service providers across the EU.
The rejection underscores the tightening regulatory environment for crypto firms in Europe, where MiCA now sets a common authorization regime for exchanges, custodians and brokerages. National supervisors such as BaFin hold the pen on individual approvals, and a refusal can stall launches that are technically ready. The case also highlights how operational readiness does not guarantee regulatory clearance in the EU market.
The licensing setback arrives amid broader debate over MiCA's rules. Around 50,000 Europeans have called on the EU to ease stablecoin rewards restrictions as part of a MiCA review, signalling growing political scrutiny of the framework. How Bitcoin Group SE's objection, if filed, and its partner-based model proceed will be closely watched by other German crypto operators.
