Austria's FMA Fines Bitpanda €70,000 in Country's First Published MiCA Penalty
Key Takeaways
- •Austria's FMA imposed a €70,000 ($82,000) fine on Bitpanda for breaching MiCA, the country's first published final penalty under the regulation.
- •Bitpanda failed to submit its crypto-asset white paper at least 20 working days before publication and distributed marketing material before the white paper was released.
- •An additional marketing communication omitted mandatory disclosures that it had not been reviewed or approved by a regulator, as well as required contact details, and the expedited proceedings concluded with a final penalty.
- •MiCA, fully applicable across the EU since the end of December 2024, permits penalties of up to the higher of €5 million or 12.5% of annual turnover, well above this fine.
- •More than 300 European crypto firms, including Bitpanda since its April 2025 authorisation, remain subject to MiCA's ongoing compliance obligations.
Austria's Financial Market Authority (FMA) has fined the Vienna-based crypto platform Bitpanda, one of Europe's largest, €70,000 ($82,000) for breaching the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), in the country's first published final penalty under the new framework.
According to the FMA, Bitpanda failed to submit a required crypto-asset white paper at least 20 working days before its publication. The company also distributed marketing material before the white paper had been published. Under MiCA, white papers are the regime's core investor-disclosure tool, designed to give prospective buyers standardised information about a crypto-asset, its issuer and its risks before they commit.
The regulator additionally found that another marketing communication lacked the mandatory disclosures stating that it had not been reviewed or approved by a regulator and that Bitpanda was responsible for its contents. The same communication also omitted required contact details.
The proceedings were concluded under an expedited procedure, and the penalty is final.
The fine highlights the increasing enforcement of MiCA as EU regulators move from establishing the framework to policing compliance. MiCA, in full application across the EU since the end of December 2024, sets harmonised rules for crypto-asset issuance and for crypto-asset service providers operating in the bloc. The framework also gives national regulators the power to impose far heavier sanctions for the most serious infringements — up to the higher of €5 million or 12.5% of a legal person's total annual turnover — leaving the €70,000 penalty well below the regime's ceiling. Bitpanda has been authorised by Austria's FMA as a MiCA-regulated crypto-asset service provider since April 2025, and the penalty underlines that the framework's disclosure and marketing obligations apply to licensed firms on an ongoing basis, not only during the authorisation process.
More than 300 crypto firms across Europe have now been approved under MiCA, all of them subject to the framework's ongoing compliance requirements. The penalty comes about a month after Gate Europe CEO Giovanni Cunti said that crypto firms that have secured licenses under the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets framework may still struggle to survive as the cost of staying compliant continues to rise.
"I think there are going to be quite a few more of the ones that acquire MiCA license that will not be capable to sustain the cost and the resources that are needed to carry on this business in the long term," Cunti said.
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