BRUSSELS, July 2 -- The roughly 1,000 crypto exchanges and wallet providers that held national registrations across the European Union entered Tuesday still unlicensed under the bloc's new Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation. The 18-month transition period MiCA had built in to give them time to convert closed at midnight. It did not reopen.

The number is stark. Of the 1,200-plus firms that held legacy national VASP registrations before MiCA took full effect in December 2024, only approximately 210 - roughly 17 percent - have converted to full crypto-asset service provider authorization under the new framework. The rest are now, as of Wednesday, operating in breach of EU law. Spain's securities regulator CNMV put it without ambiguity in a...