BaFin Refuses Bitcoin.de Operator's MiCA Licence After 15 Months

BaFin refused the licence bitcoin.de needed to trade again. Germany's Federal Financial Supervisory Authority turned down futurum bank AG's application for authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets rules, and the bank's parent, Bitcoin Group SE, announced the refusal on 6 October. The application had been with the regulator since 27 June 2025, a little over fifteen months. Trading on the platform has been largely suspended since 12 June. Chief executive Moritz Eckert said the company will try to reopen through regulated partners instead.

Fifteen months, then a no

The company's account of the decision is short, and it is the only account available. BaFin found futurum bank's implementation and operational readiness insufficient for authorisation, Bitcoin Group said, and judged that the progress achievable in the short term would not close the remaining requirements. The regulator published nothing of its own that we could find. One distinction is worth separating out. MiCAR authorisation, the permission a firm needs under EU Regulation 2023/1114 before offering crypto services to European customers, is not the same thing as a banking licence. Cryptobriefing reported on 6 October that futurum bank already holds the latter and still needed the former. That detail appears in one account and nowhere else.

What happens to the coins

Bitcoin Group says customer assets remain secure and that customer claims remain fully intact. On its telling, futurum bank keeps custody itself until the holdings can move to another regulated German custodian. Cointelegraph reported something different early on 7 October: that customer crypto was shifted to new custody infrastructure back in August, with the old trading system switched off. The two accounts do not reconcile, and neither addresses the other. Nothing read here puts a date on the transfer or names the custodian taking it.

Two partners, and no licence of its own

The replacement plan has two seats to fill. Bitcoin Group intends to work with regulated German institutions, one acting as trading counterparty and another as custodian, so the redesigned bitcoin.de app can reopen without futurum bank holding a MiCAR authorisation at all. Eckert said the company wants to resume trading through regulated partners "as quickly as possible," and the announcement puts "within the next few weeks" on the timetable. Neither partner is named. The firm also says it had prepared for the possibility of a refusal, and it keeps the option of lodging an objection or filing a fresh application. It has not said which it will take. Eckert called the decision "a setback for us" in the company's English announcement, while Cryptobriefing rendered the same remark as "a blow." Both are translations of a German statement, and no full sentence from him appears in either.

A smaller company waits for a counterparty

The cost of the pause is on the books already. Revenue for the first half of 2026 came to 1.59 million euros against 3.78 million a year earlier, and EBITDA swung to a 3.25 million euro loss from a loss of 1 million. Those figures appear in two accounts and agree. Earnings per share of -1.02 euros, net crypto assets of 199 million and an equity ratio of 71.8% come from one account only. Bitcoin.de is unusual among European venues in its outcome, not in its position. The bloc's transition closed on everyone at once, and ESMA set 1 July as the stop for firms without MiCA approval. Supervisors have been willing to act since. Bitpanda took Europe's first published MiCA fine, 70,000 euros, in a separate matter. What the 1.1 million registered users Cointelegraph counts on the platform get back, and when, now rests with two firms nobody has identified.