Episode Details

In this episode, I welcome JB Graftieaux, CEO of Coinbase Europe | MiCA & EMI Entity, for a discussion on crypto regulation in Europe, from the MiCA licence to the products Coinbase can offer under the licences it holds.

We talked about:

• The end of the national patchwork: before MiCA, a crypto player needed a local registration in each country, in Spain, Italy or France, and a portfolio of six, eight or twelve registrations was very expensive and very complex to maintain. With one licence, it can now operate in every EU member state and passport its activity everywhere in the EU, like a bank or a payment service provider.
• The white-label solution for banks and payment providers: they integrate Coinbase's custody, liquidity and portfolio of assets into their own app, they take care of the distribution, and Coinbase takes care of the tech aspect.
• Why Luxembourg: a country that has supported crypto for more than 12 years and, according to him, gave the first licence to a crypto player in Europe in 2016, where Coinbase set up its EU headquarter, received its MiCA licence last year and an Electronic Money Institution licence earlier this year. - The estimate, which he says he cannot give exactly, that between 1,000 and 3,000 crypto companies will not secure the MiCA licence while more than 200 are still applying, and the consolidation he expects as consumers look for regulated actors.
• The share of trading that already goes through self-hosted wallets and decentralized protocols: 20 to 25% today, against a couple of percent four or five years ago, alongside the regulated and centralized account Coinbase offers.
• The Everything Exchange, one access to crypto, equity, derivatives and prediction markets, and a rollout set by licences: the product is ready in the US, while elsewhere Coinbase offers what its licences allow, equity in the UK and derivatives from Cyprus, where it holds a MiFID licence, with spot margin announced for the next couple of months.
• The five-year outlook: a MiCA 2 expected in three or five years, he does not know which, stablecoin settlement still dominated by the dollar, probably more than 90%, and DeFi, which he can imagine reaching 50 to 60% of the market in five to ten years.

An open exchange on what regulation changes for a crypto platform in Europe, from the MiCA licence to the products it can offer, and on what could come next.

JB's recommendation:

"The Promise of Bitcoin", by Bobby Lee

Useful links

JB Graftieaux: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jb0001/

Coinbase: http://www.coinbase.com

Finscale is also available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@finscale.

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