Tag: KuCoin EU Holding

Austria’s Financial Market Authority (FMA) has turned Vienna into a MiCA hub – and a single Viennese lawyer, Oliver Stauber, keeps appearing at the front door. First KuCoin, now Bitget: both global exchanges with serious regulatory baggage, both pushing their EU entry via Austria, both with Stauber as CEO or managing director at the licensing stage. From a compliance perspective, this “rent-a-CEO” model looks increasingly problematic.

Seychelles-born, Hong Kong-owned, U.S.–sanctioned KuCoin has just won one of Europe’s most coveted trophies: a MiCA CASP licence from Austria’s FMA via KuCoin EU Exchange GmbH. This licence gives KuCoin passported access to (almost) the entire EEA – despite a fresh U.S. criminal guilty plea for unlicensed money transmission and serious AML failures.