First Published MiCA Case Sees Bitpanda Fined EUR 70,000 in Austria

Austria's Financial Market Authority (FMA) has fined Bitpanda GmbH EUR 70,000 (approximately $81,000) for breaching the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR), the regulator announced on Friday. The FMA described the penalty as the first legally binding MiCAR sanction decision it has published, while cautioning that this does not mean Bitpanda received the first MiCAR fine in the European Union.

The case concerns post-authorization disclosure obligations for a crypto asset. According to the sanction notice, Bitpanda failed to submit the crypto-asset white paper to the FMA at least 20 working days before publishing it, a requirement under Article 8 of MiCAR. The company also distributed a marketing communication before the white paper had been published.

The marketing material omitted the mandatory statement that no European Union authority had reviewed or approved it and that the offeror was solely responsible for its content. It also lacked a telephone number and email address. The FMA did not name the crypto-asset involved, reproduce the marketing communication, or disclose the relevant publication dates.

The regulator said the penalty covers offering and advertising rules only. It made no findings concerning custody of customer assets, withdrawals, or Bitpanda's license status. The case was closed through an expedited process under Section 22(2b) of Austria's Financial Market Authority Act, with no further procedural details provided.

The FMA issued a separate statement explaining that MiCAR has moved from licensing and supervision into its enforcement phase, covering the full supervisory cycle. It also warned against reading too much into the "first published case" label, saying publication does not give the company or its violations any special status.

Earlier penalties involving MiCAR-licensed exchanges were not necessarily MiCAR cases. Malta fined OKX's European entity EUR 1.1 million in 2025 for anti-money laundering failures from 2023, under AML rules rather than MiCAR.

Bitpanda's Austrian authorization remains in place. The FMA approved Bitpanda GmbH as a crypto-asset service provider on April 9, 2025, covering custody, exchange, order execution, placement, reception and transmission of orders, and transfers. The company also holds a separate MiCAR authorization from Germany's BaFin, granted in January 2025. With the EU transition period ending July 1, Bitpanda continues to be listed on the FMA's authorization page as approved to provide crypto-asset services in Austria. In a June 23 company post, Bitpanda said strict enforcement was necessary to protect the market and described itself as fully compliant.