Bitcoin.de remains largely unable to process trading after German regulator BaFin rejected Futurum Bank AG’s application to operate as a crypto-asset service provider under MiCA. According to Bitcoin Group SE’s October 6 regulatory disclosure, BaFin also told the company that its previous tolerance of Futurum Bank’s crypto services no longer applies. Futurum submitted the application on June 27, 2025, leaving the process open for more than 15 months.
The rejection follows a trading interruption that predates BaFin’s final licensing decision. Bitcoin Group says operational trading activities have been largely suspended since June 12, while Futurum continued custodying customer assets. The company says customer claims remain intact and those assets will stay with Futurum until they can be transferred to an alternative regulated custodian.
Bitcoin.de Turns to Regulated Partners
Bitcoin Group is now preparing a different operating structure rather than waiting exclusively for another authorization attempt. Futurum plans to cooperate with a regulated German institution that would initially act as customers’ trading counterparty, while another regulated company would provide custody. The redesigned Bitcoin.de app could therefore relaunch without Futurum itself performing every regulated function previously contemplated under its MiCA application.
CEO Moritz Eckert said BaFin considered Futurum’s current implementation and operationalization, together with the progress achievable in the short term, insufficient for authorization. Bitcoin Group disagrees with that assessment and is reviewing its options. Futurum may object after formal notification or submit a new application later. The company is targeting a trading restart “within the next few weeks,” but no binding reopening date has been announced.
The episode illustrates the practical consequences of a licensing environment in which Germany has accumulated one of Europe’s largest numbers of MiCA authorizations while maintaining demanding implementation standards. Other major platforms are confronting different versions of the same transition, including EU scrutiny of Binance’s reliance on MiCA reverse solicitation. MiCA provides a common European framework, but national supervisory decisions still have immediate consequences for individual operators.
Licensing Delay Adds Pressure to Bitcoin Group
Bitcoin Group entered the regulatory setback with weaker first-half results. Revenue fell to €1.59 million from €3.78 million a year earlier, while EBITDA deteriorated to a €3.25 million loss from a €1 million loss. The company attributed the decline to weaker crypto-market activity alongside heavy spending on its platform overhaul and workforce expansion. Those figures should not be treated as losses caused solely by the MiCA rejection, which occurred after the reporting period.
The rebuilt platform itself is technically complete, according to the company, and is intended to replace Bitcoin.de’s historic peer-to-peer model with a brokerage architecture supporting more than 100 crypto assets, savings plans, staking and swaps. Regulatory clearance had been the remaining obstacle to launching that structure as originally planned.
The new partner model could resolve that bottleneck, but Bitcoin Group has not yet disclosed the counterparties, commercial terms or resulting revenue economics. It is therefore too early to conclude that outsourcing trading and custody will necessarily reduce margins or regulatory exposure by a specific amount. The case instead provides a concrete example of the implementation pressure accompanying Europe’s transition to MiCA, even as policymakers are already considering how the framework may evolve in a future phase beyond the current MiCA regime.
For Bitcoin.de, the immediate operational question is whether the regulated-partner structure can be completed quickly enough to restore trading after nearly four months of disruption. Until agreements are finalized and a reopening date is published, the relaunch remains a company target rather than an operationally confirmed event.
