Dutch Customers Given Until November to Leave MEXC
Crypto exchange MEXC will stop serving customers in the Netherlands in November and has selected MiCA-authorised Bybit EU as a recommended alternative, creating a direct migration route for Dutch users as European regulators push unlicensed crypto platforms out of the market.
MEXC customers in the Netherlands are being encouraged to move their assets by Oct. 31, with final offboarding scheduled for Nov. 16, 2026. Users who choose Bybit EU will have to open a new account, complete its identity-verification process and transfer their crypto themselves.
No MEXC accounts, customer data or assets will be automatically transferred to Bybit.
Bybit EU confirmed the arrangement in an Aug. 21 announcement, saying MEXC would contact affected customers directly with instructions and deadlines. MEXC Chief Compliance Officer Robert MacDonald said the exchange selected Bybit because of its regulatory framework and customer-protection arrangements.
The referral has an unusual connection between the two companies. MacDonald joined MEXC as chief compliance officer in July after previously serving as Bybit’s chief legal and compliance officer, where his responsibilities included licensing, anti-money-laundering controls and regulatory work.
Bybit EU operates separately from Bybit’s global platform and received authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider from Austria’s Financial Market Authority in May 2025.
Its MiCA approval covers custody and administration of crypto-assets, crypto-to-fiat exchange, crypto-to-crypto exchange, placing crypto-assets and transfer services. A MiCA-authorised provider can use the EU passporting system to offer approved services across other European Economic Area countries.
Bybit has added another European regulatory permission this month. Austria’s FMA granted Bybit Payments GmbH an electronic-money institution licence on Aug. 4, allowing it to issue electronic money and provide several payment services.
MEXC does not have comparable MiCA authorisation.
That has been an issue in the Netherlands for some time. The Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets issued a public warning against MEXC in September 2025, saying the exchange was actively providing crypto services to Dutch consumers without the required licence.
The AFM said MEXC was targeting the Netherlands through Dutch-language social media campaigns and sponsorship of a Dutch blockchain conference. It described MEXC’s Dutch operations at the time as an unauthorised provision of crypto-asset services.
The timing is notable because the Netherlands adopted a considerably shorter MiCA transition period than the maximum permitted under EU law.
Existing providers registered under the previous Dutch regime could continue without a MiCA licence only until June 30, 2025. After that deadline, they needed MiCA authorisation or a valid notification to continue providing covered crypto services in the country.
Across the EU more broadly, the final MiCA grandfathering period expired on July 1, 2026. ESMA said any provider still supplying covered crypto services to EU clients without authorisation after that date must cease those services and carry out an orderly wind-down.
ESMA specifically listed two possible methods for handling customers during such a wind-down: assets can be transferred to an authorised crypto-asset service provider or returned to customers, including through transfers to self-hosted wallets.
The MEXC-Bybit arrangement uses the first model, although customers retain control over whether they move to Bybit EU or somewhere else.
MEXC is effectively supplying a destination rather than conducting a portfolio transfer.
Bybit is also using financial incentives to attract those customers. Eligible newcomers have been offered €30 in Bitcoin after depositing at least €100 within seven days, a seven-day VIP 1 trading-fee trial and a Bybit Card package carrying benefits worth up to €120.
The arrangement is limited to Dutch users at this stage.
MEXC’s withdrawal comes as MiCA moves from its licensing phase into enforcement and market restructuring. Article 59 of the regulation generally prevents companies from providing covered crypto-asset services in the EU unless they are authorised as CASPs or qualify under specified provisions for regulated financial institutions.
That distinction is increasingly dividing global exchanges into two groups: companies that have established separately authorised European entities and platforms that must reduce or end services where they lack regulatory approval.
MiCA Is Starting to Redistribute Crypto Customers
There is a bigger story behind several thousand or even several hundred thousand Dutch customers being told to change exchanges.
MiCA is beginning to redistribute market share.
For years, crypto exchanges competed primarily on fees, token availability, leverage, liquidity and product launches. European licensing now adds another factor that can decide who gets access to customers in the first place.
MEXC and Bybit illustrate that difference clearly.
MEXC is a major global trading venue. ESMA market data has repeatedly included it among the larger exchanges by crypto trading volume. That global scale, however, does not grant it access to Dutch or other EU customers under MiCA.
Bybit EU may offer a narrower product range than an offshore platform, but it possesses something increasingly valuable: regulatory access to the EEA.
That can turn departing customers from one exchange into acquisition opportunities for another.
The interesting feature here is that MEXC is not simply telling users to withdraw. It has attached the name of a regulated competitor to its exit process.
That creates a different type of commercial relationship between licensed and unlicensed crypto firms. Instead of every departing exchange leaving customers to search independently for another platform, regulated CASPs could increasingly become formal or informal landing points for customer books displaced by MiCA.
There is a strong commercial reason for licensed exchanges to participate.
Customer acquisition in crypto is expensive. Exchanges spend heavily on advertising, sponsorships, affiliate programs and bonuses to persuade users to open accounts. A regulatory exit can suddenly create a concentrated pool of active traders who already own crypto, understand exchanges and need another venue.
Bybit’s incentives make that logic visible. The bonuses are not simply assistance for MEXC customers. They are an acquisition campaign attached to a regulatory migration.
The larger question is how valuable those users become after arriving.
A customer moving from MEXC may discover that the EU-regulated platform does not offer every asset, derivative or trading feature available offshore. MiCA authorisation also does not automatically cover every financial product an exchange can offer internationally.
Some traders will accept those restrictions to stay with an EU-regulated provider. Others may move assets into self-custody or continue searching for platforms outside the regulated European system.
That means MiCA does not necessarily guarantee that all activity leaving an unauthorised exchange lands at an authorised competitor.
Still, the direction is becoming clearer.
Licences are turning into distribution assets.
An exchange that spent heavily obtaining MiCA approval can now gain customers when competitors are required to leave. The economic return on compliance therefore comes not only from avoiding enforcement but from gaining access to customer flows that unlicensed rivals can no longer legally pursue.
MEXC’s Dutch exit also shows how slowly that restructuring can happen. The AFM publicly warned against the exchange in September 2025, and the Dutch transition period had already ended three months earlier. Yet the final offboarding date arrives in November 2026.
That long gap shows that moving crypto activity from a largely borderless model into a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction regulated structure is not an instant process.
But each departure makes the new European market structure more visible.
If referral agreements like MEXC’s arrangement with Bybit become common, MiCA could do more than reduce the number of exchanges serving Europeans. It could gradually concentrate customers and liquidity among a smaller group of authorised platforms.
In that scenario, obtaining a MiCA licence becomes much more than a compliance expense. It becomes a way to collect market share every time another competitor leaves.
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