Bitget appointed former Bitpanda chief legal officer and prior KuCoin EU head Oliver Stauber as CEO of Bitget EU to lead the exchange’s Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA) expansion and set up its new European headquarters in Vienna.
The entity, which applied for a MiCA license in Austria in 2025, expects regulatory approval in the second quarter of 2026 and will not offer services in the European Economic Area (EEA) until authorization is granted, Stauber told Cointelegraph.
He said that Bitget EU will ring‑fence EEA users from the offshore Bitget platform via Internet Protocol (IP) address detection and enhanced Know Your Customer (KYC) controls designed to prevent unlicensed entities from onboarding residents through geographic workarounds, marketing or reverse solicitation.
“Oliver’s appointment builds our confidence in Bitget’s long-term presence in Europe,” said Gracy Chen, CEO at Bitget, in a release shared with Cointelegraph.
She added that he brought the “regulatory fluency and operational discipline needed” to set up Bitget’s EU headquarters in Austria.
The new entity will also apply strict token listing criteria, offering only those assets that meet MiCA’s whitepaper, liquidity and disclosure standards, according to the release.
“We are currently conducting a rigorous audit of our inventory,” Stauber said. “Products that do not meet EU standards for market integrity or fail to provide sufficient consumer disclosures will not be offered to EEA users.”
Related: KuCoin taps former LSEG exec Sabina Liu to lead MiCA expansion in Europe
Broker model, best‑execution and market‑abuse controls
Stauber said that Bitget EU will operate as a broker rather than an exchange, acting as counterparty to all client trades while sourcing liquidity from a range of independent providers under best‑execution principles.
He said the “look and feel” of the Bitget EU website will closely mirror the existing platform, but with a distinct legal structure that reduces market risk for European Union clients and is subject to MiCA and European Securities and Markets Authority expectations on market integrity, and national conduct rules.
The company also plans to deploy market surveillance tools to detect and prevent market abuse and other manipulative or disorderly trading.
Vienna hub anchors Bitget’s long-term EU strategy
Vienna was selected as Bitget’s EU base due to its central location, multilingual talent pool and stable regulatory environment, which Stauber described as well‑suited to serve as a governance and compliance hub for EEA operations.
Existing EEA users on Bitget’s global platform will be invited to transition to Bitget EU once authorization is in place, with the new entity offering EU‑compliant services.
Magazine: How crypto laws changed in 2025 — and how they’ll change in 2026
