Crypto exchange license rules: BitLicense, MiCA and Bermuda DABA

Why a trading venue needs a crypto exchange license

A trading venue sits where several risks meet. It often holds customer assets, it matches orders between strangers, and it sees large sums move through it. Each of those functions has an older regulatory analogue: custody rules for banks and brokers, exchange rules for stock markets, anti-money-laundering rules for payment firms. A crypto exchange license bundles some or all of them into one authorization.

The details differ, but most regimes ask similar questions before granting one. Who owns and controls the firm. How customer assets are held and kept apart from the firm's own (see custody). Whether there is enough capital to absorb losses. How the venue checks identities under KYC and anti-money-laundering rules. How it handles conflicts of interest, market abuse, outages and complaints, and what it tells customers about fees and risks.

Those questions come from venues that failed while holding client money, a pattern traced on the market structure timeline. A license does not make a venue safe, but it sets minimums an unlicensed venue does not have to meet. It also decides where a firm may operate. A license in one jurisdiction rarely permits serving customers in another, which is why the same exchange can offer different products in New York, Paris and Hamilton.

EU MiCA: CASP authorization and the passport

The EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 or MiCA, entered into force on June 29, 2023 and applied in stages. Its titles on stablecoins (asset-referenced tokens and e-money tokens) applied from June 30, 2024. The rest, including the regime for crypto-asset service providers (CASPs), applied from December 30, 2024.

Under Article 59, a firm that operates a trading platform for crypto-assets, holds them in custody for clients, exchanges them for funds or other crypto-assets, or provides other services listed in the regulation needs authorization as a CASP from a national competent authority in one member state. Article 65 then lets that authorization be passported: the firm can serve clients across the EU after a notification, rather than applying again in each country.

Article 67 and Annex IV set permanent minimum capital in three classes: €50,000, €125,000 and €150,000, depending on the services provided. Operating a trading platform puts a firm in the €150,000 class. On top of capital, MiCA sets rules on governance, safekeeping of client assets, complaints handling, conflicts of interest and market abuse.

Firms already operating under national regimes before December 2024 could continue during a transitional period, which member states were allowed to shorten. That period ended on July 1, 2026 at the latest. As of October 2026, a firm providing crypto-asset services in the EU is expected to hold a MiCA authorization.

Bermuda DABA: Class F, Class M and Class T licenses

Bermuda's Digital Asset Business Act 2018 (DABA) created a dedicated licensing regime administered by the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA). The 2018 Act set out two classes: a Class F license for full digital asset business, and a Class M license, a modified license granted for a limited period under conditions set by the BMA. The BMA now also lists a Class T (test) license.

The Act covers activities that include operating a digital asset exchange and providing custody services, and licensees must meet standards on governance, client asset protection, cybersecurity and anti-money-laundering. In March 2019 Omega Dark, a crossing network billed by its operator as the first regulated dark pool in digital assets, launched with a provisional Class M license under the Act, an early example of the modified class in use.

A Bermuda license is a home-jurisdiction authorization for business carried on in or from Bermuda. It does not open the EU or New York markets, each of which requires its own crypto exchange license. How dark venues match orders is explained in the guide to crypto dark pools.

The CLARITY Act and the GENIUS Act: where they stand

The CLARITY Act (H.R. 3633) is the main crypto market structure bill in Congress. It would divide oversight of digital assets between the CFTC and the SEC and create registration routes for the platforms that trade them. The House passed it 294–134 on July 17, 2025. In the Senate, a cloture vote on the motion to proceed failed 49–50 on September 15, 2026, short of the 60 votes needed, and a motion to reconsider was entered. As of October 2026 the bill is not law and no new vote is scheduled.

Until a crypto market structure bill passes both chambers and is signed, the agency split described above stays in place, and interpretations and proposed rules carry much of the weight that a statute would otherwise carry.

Stablecoins took a separate track. The GENIUS Act, a federal framework for payment stablecoins, was signed into law on July 18, 2025 as Public Law 119-27. It takes effect at the earlier of 18 months after enactment or 120 days after final regulations, so it is expected to take effect by January 18, 2027. Its focus is stablecoin issuance rather than the licensing of trading venues, so it leaves the market structure question for exchanges open.

Regulation ATS: the equities template for dark pools

US equities dealt with a version of the venue question long before crypto. Regulation ATS, adopted by the SEC in December 1998 and effective April 21, 1999, lets a trading system register as a broker-dealer and comply with Reg ATS instead of registering as a national securities exchange. Dark pools in US equities operate as alternative trading systems under that framework.

The ATS model is a reference point in crypto debates because it shows one way to license a venue that matches orders without taking on every obligation of an exchange. How that template shaped private crossing networks is covered in the guide to crypto dark pools, and the unregistered token sales that brought many of these rules into focus are described on the ICO era page.

Nothing on this page is legal advice. Licensing outcomes depend on the facts of each business and on rules that, in the United States especially, were still moving as of October 2026.