Europe’s crypto entrepreneurs are voting with their feet. And increasingly, those feet are landing in Dubai.
Irina Heaver, a lawyer at NeosLegal, says her firm now fields more than 120 inquiries per week from crypto founders looking to set up operations in the UAE. Roughly half of those requests come from Europe, with Spain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and the UK leading the exodus. The trigger: the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, better known as MiCA, which hits its transitional deadline on July 1, 2026. After that date, previous national registrations become worthless.
Out of nearly 3,000 crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) that were previously registered under national frameworks across Europe, only about 244 have managed to secure full MiCA authorization so far. That’s roughly 8% of the total. The other 92% are staring down a regulatory cliff with less than a year to go.
Why Dubai, why now
Licensing through the UAE’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) can happen in a matter of days. In Europe, the same process stretches across months.
