Bitget is establishing an EU headquarters in Vienna and has hired Austrian jurist Oliver Stauber, formerly of KuCoin and Bitpanda, to lead the company's Europe strategy under the upcoming MICA regime.
Vienna is becoming one of Europe's most important “MICA hubs”, with global crypto exchanges setting up their European headquarters and applying for a MICA license. Once granted, the licence can be passported throughout the EU market, including the Nordic countries, enabling companies to serve customers under a unified regulatory framework.
Bitget, founded in Singapore in 2018, has grown to become one of the world's largest crypto exchanges for derivatives measured by trading volume, stating that it serves over 100 million users in more than 150 countries. With the EU's Markets in Crypto‑Assets Regulation (MiCA) on the way, major global platforms have begun a race to secure regulated bases in the EU and align governance and risk frameworks with European standards. Vienna is positioning itself as one of these MICA hubs, where the Austrian financial regulator FMA is attracting applications from exchanges that will use an Austrian licence to pass on services throughout the EU market.
Bitget has confirmed that the company plans to establish an EU headquarters in Vienna to coordinate its future European operations. The operational start-up in Vienna is explicitly connected to approval under MiCA, and Bitget plans to submit a license application to the Austrian Financial Supervisory Authority, but has not yet provided any concrete opening date. Once the permit is in place, the company expects to build up staffing in Vienna incrementally, making the city a focal point for compliance, governance and liaison with regulatory authorities in its EU operations.
In this way, Bitget treats Vienna as its own MICA hub: the planned head office is envisaged as the hub from which the EU-licensed company can serve customers throughout the European Economic Area under a single regulatory framework. Currently, the Vienna unit is in a build-up and structuring phase rather than a fully operational trading platform, and Bitget links the project to a long-term Europe strategy rather than a short-term market stunt.
At the centre of the action is the hiring of Austrian jurist Oliver Stauber as the new Head of Europe at Bitget. Stauber recently served as CEO of KUCOIN's European unit in Vienna and previously served as Chief Legal Officer of Bitpanda, where he was responsible for legal, regulatory and compliance issues and dialogue with regulatory authorities. This background gives him direct experience in building and running regulated crypto businesses in both Austrian and European contexts.
In statements in the local press, Stauber says he sees a clear determination in Bitget to build a regular, MICA‑ready crypto business in Europe. Bitget CEO Gracy Chen draws on his regulatory experience and mandate to design a scalable and compliant platform for European users. By bringing in a locally rooted leader with experience from other Vienna-based crypto communities, Bitget taps into the city's growing expertise base in MICA law and compliance that is central to its ambitions for a hub.
Bitget plans to apply for a MICA licence with the Austrian Financial Supervisory Authority in order to operate the Vienna office as a fully regulated EU centre. Until such a license is granted, Bitget EU cannot launch ordinary services for customers in the EEA, but instead focuses on building the internal structures, processes and management systems that MiCA will require. The main pressure in the implementation of MiCA lies around 2026, which makes larger exchanges now want to hedge their regulatory positions well in advance of the deadlines.
MiCA will harmonise governance, transparency and risk management rules for crypto asset service providers across the EU market. For a global stock exchange such as Bitget, therefore, anchoring in Vienna means more than just a new office; it means that products and internal processes must be adapted to a regulatory framework that will apply to all EU customers. How different Bitget's future EU offering will be compared to the global platform ultimately depends on the outcome of the licence application and how the Austrian supervisory authority practices MiCA in specific cases.
The coverage of Bitget's plans forms part of a bigger picture in which Vienna is emerging as a center of gravity for European crypto headquarters under MiCA. Several major exchanges have already established or expanded European entities in the Austrian capital and applied for or obtained MICA‑related permits, strengthening Vienna's role as a regulatory and operational hub for crypto in the single market. Bitget's decision to follow the same lead, and to hire a locally connected manager with experience from both Bitpanda and KuCoin, adds a new layer to Vienna's position as a MICA‑hub for exchanges that will have access across the EU.
For Austria, the concentration of crypto headquarters means increased visibility as a digital-asset location, but also greater pressure on regulators to balance innovation and investor protection in a still volatile market. For Bitget, the Vienna project will be a test of whether a global derivatives-focused exchange can translate its scale into a strictly regulated EU environment without losing attractiveness for both retail customers and professional players, starting in a city increasingly associated with MICA-driven expansion.
Sources: BTC Echo, Bitget, Tradingview, Kaupr
