Trade Republic: MiCAR license opens up new crypto worlds for investors!

Trade Republic: MiCAR license opens up new crypto worlds for investors!

Trade Republic, one of the largest neobrokers in Europe with over 8 million customers, received a MiCAR license from the French financial market regulator AMF on April 28, 2025. This license allows the company to offer trading in a variety of cryptocurrencies within the framework of European crypto asset regulations. MiCAR, or Markets in Crypto-Asset Regulation, is a new European Union regulatory framework designed to ensure that trading in crypto assets is harmonized and secure. With the license, Trade Republic can now custody, issue and staking cryptocurrencies, significantly expanding their offering.

The decision to apply for a MiCAR license is part of Trade Republic's strategy to position itself as a “full bank”. Given the challenges that the ban on Payment for Order Flow (PFOF) poses to the business model of neobrokers, it is essential to develop new business areas. Paymentandbanking.com reports that Trade Republic is considering several ways to diversify its offerings. Already 25 providers such as Bitpanda, Coinbase and Kraken have a MiCAR license, while the license allows Trade Republic to continue to compete with these companies.

New opportunities for investors

The MiCAR license opens up the opportunity for Trade Republic to offer crypto custody services and facilitate transactions in all EU member states. Crypto expert Patrick Hansen explains that the license is used to hold crypto assets, execute customer orders and provide transfer services. These new features enable Trade Republic to offer crypto products under the highest regulatory standards across Europe, which can be of great benefit to investors.

Although Trade Republic has been offering various crypto assets for almost four years, it has not yet been possible to exchange them with each other or transfer them to your own wallets. With the new license, this restriction could soon be a thing of the past. It is planned to enable the exchange of crypto assets between customers and the transfer to private wallets in the future, which is currently not yet available. Btc-echo.de highlights that these new features could significantly improve Trade Republic's user experience.

Competitive environment

Trade Republic has a solid customer base with over 8 million users, including around 2.5 million in Germany. However, it is unclear how many of these users are actually interested in crypto trading. The company offers trading in over 50 cryptocurrencies, including well-known names such as Ethereum, Solana and XRP, with a third-party fee of just one euro. For comparison, Bitpanda charges a surcharge of 0.99 percent for Bitcoin trading.

A key advantage of the MiCAR license is that Trade Republic will be able to store cryptocurrencies itself in the future instead of having to rely on service providers such as Bitgo. This could lead to cost savings in the long term and further strengthen competitiveness in the neobroker market. In an increasingly regulated environment, the ability to offer a comprehensive service becomes the hallmark of companies like Trade Republic.