Ben Zhou said a single MiCA licence will not be enough to turn a profit for his firm in Europe and that Bybit is not making money under the current authorization. "With the current MiCA framework, you can only do fiat-to-crypto, crypto-to-crypto," Zhou said, and that limitation leaves out the products his company needs.
Zhou said the holes are material. "There are many elements of a profitable business you cannot do, so even as a MiCA holder — unless you're Kraken or BItpanda or Bitvivo, who are already making money because they have multiple licenses.” He listed MiFID II and an Electronic Money Institution licence, abbreviated EMI, as additional permissions firms need to build a sustainable business model.
The MiCA licence that Bybit holds was chosen under Austria's FMA, Zhou said, a decision taken at an unspecified date before the interview. A MiCA licence issued by one country allows a crypto-asset service provider to operate across the European Economic Area, which includes all 27 members of the European Union, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. But Zhou warned that the passport is not a full commercial toolkit.
Timing is pressing. The MiCA grandfathering period closes at the end of June, and firms must have obtained MiCA authorization to operate across the region by July 1. That deadline, Zhou said, is forcing some operators to make sharp choices about whether they can afford greater compliance costs and extra licences on top of MiCA.
Zhou framed the coming market moves bluntly. "We don't make money under the current MiCA license. But we're able to afford it because we're a big entity. For us, it's a long-term investment," he said. He added a forecast of the firm’s turnaround: "It could be five years away, but I think that is a bit long. I would assume we are probably going to be profitable within two years."
Those timelines matter because MiCA’s partial coverage — currently confined to fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-crypto transactions — leaves exposure for products like derivatives and tokenized assets. Zhou said those products are essential to profitability, and he warned they are also driving exits. "That's why these guys are shutting down. Because even if they know they could afford MiCA, they're like, 'WTF, I need [MiFID, EMI] to make money, and I need to make a whole lot of investment in compliance infrastructure to be able to be profitable?’"
The mismatch between a Europe-wide licence and national interpretation is a second source of friction. "Some countries interpret it as a way to attract new business; some want heavy regulation. So you actually have different levels of strictness," Zhou said. He described ongoing talks about harmonising standards — "There are talks about a more level playing field" — but warned of trade-offs.
Consolidation, he said, is likely. "There’s going to be market consolidation," Zhou said, noting that smaller firms face the dual burden of meeting MiCA rules and buying extra authorizations. He also raised a potential downside of a pan-European regime: distance from a local regulator can slow problem solving. "But there could be disadvantages. Because when you have a local regulator they are easy to get to. If we have any issues, we just send an email and go to FMA in Vienna. But if everyone's in Paris, then you have to line up. There are more CASPs, increased bureaucracy, decreased efficiency."
For now, Zhou’s public assessment leaves a narrow, practical question for the industry: can firms afford the compliance runway to win business under MiCA’s passport while also acquiring MiFID II and EMI permissions — and will that be enough to keep smaller players from exiting before July 1? Zhou’s answer is a warning and a timetable: some will fall away, and Bybit expects to reach profitability in about two years while navigating the new European rules.
