Crypto World

KuCoin’s New European Chapter Begins: KuCoin EU Secures MiCAR Compliance, Celebrates With a Ball in Vienna

Published

5 days ago

30 January 2026

After years of speculation about whether major crypto exchange KuCoin would be available to EU users, the wait is finally over.

KuCoin is officially MiCAR-compliant. It celebrated this significant achievement with a VIP gala at the iconic Spanish Riding School in Vienna, Austria, on Wednesday night.

Cryptonews has been on the ground in Vienna this week, speaking directly with company leadership to uncover what lies ahead for their new European Union expansion.

‘Only The Starting Point’

The fully MiCAR-regulated crypto trading platform has opened its doors to a massive number of users now that it is available in 29 European Economic Area markets.

The team explained that KuCoin EU users will have access to EUR deposits and withdrawals, spot trading, and local customer support, among other services.

They plan to offer campaigns and features exclusive to the region.

This is a notable advance, both for the company and for its users.

With this move, KuCoin EU has met the union’s regulatory standards. More precisely, it is licensed as a Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR) and is supervised by Austria’s Financial Market Authority (FMA).

“Over the past months, our teams have worked meticulously to design a platform that meets Europe’s regulatory expectations in full, while still delivering the performance, reliability, and user experience that modern crypto users expect,” said Managing Director Christian Niedermueller.

However, he adds that this is just “the starting point.”

Now that the platform has established a solid regulatory foundation, Niedermueller said, KuCoin will move into “a long-term role in shaping a trusted digital asset ecosystem across Europe.”

This, he suggests, they can accomplish by adapting to regional needs and paying attention to what local users have to say.

Also, KuCoin CEO BC Wong added that the team chose Austria as KuCoin EU’s base. This is due to “its clear and forward-looking regulatory framework, which provides a strong foundation for operating responsibly and sustainably across Europe.”

KuCoin EU’s Managing Directors Christian Niedermueller, Sabina Liu, and Audrey Lim launched the platform live onstage in Austria’s capital. They said that a phased roll-out of its services has begun.

More offers are arriving on the list in the coming months.

Expanding the Team, Establishing a Payment Layer

KuCoin revealed that the EU platform has a 30-person regional team across Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Portugal, and the Netherlands.

Moreover, they will move forward with the Visa KuCard for Europe, providing a payment service for millions of people. The card comes with zero annual fees, instant conversion, and up to 8.5% cashback.

Another big announcement came in the form of Sabina Liu taking the new role as Managing Director.

Liu boasts a deep understanding of KuCoin’s core principles and seems an obvious choice for this role.

She previously ran KuCoin exchange’s institutional business, and before that spent 14 years at London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG).

In Liu’s words, “Europe represents one of the most sophisticated financial markets globally, and KuCoin EU has been built to meet that standard from day one. This launch reflects a clear business decision to invest long-term in Europe, by establishing local leadership, aligning with regulatory expectations, and delivering a platform designed around specific regional needs.”

Notably, with the foundation now in place, the team’s “focus is on responsible growth, strong partnerships, and building a sustainable business that can scale across the region,” the new Managing Director said.

A New Partnership Based On ‘Shared Values’

The event continued with announcements. They revealed a strategic partnership with world-class cyclist Tadej Pogačar.

The four-time Tour de France champion and the current UCI Road World Champion is now KuCoin EU’s global brand partner.

Both parties have stated that the partnership is not of a transactional kind – instead, it focuses on shared values. “Trust is not declared, but earned through long-term performance, professionalism, and discipline,” the team said.

Additionally, this latest news follows the exchange’s collaborations with Australian golf player Adam Scott and global music festival Tomorrowland.

Meanwhile, KuCoin was founded in 2017. It says it has 40 million users across more than 200 countries and regions.

Moreover, it offers access to 1,000+ listed tokens, spot and futures trading, institutional wealth management, and a Web3 wallet.

At the end of last year, it reported 55% year-on-year growth in spot trading volume. This was in addition to the 30% rise in futures volume.

In December 2025, KuCoin announced a $2 billion Trust Project, aiming to strengthen institutional confidence and platform security.

Now, with the latest move, the firm says it has opened its brand new chapter.

Crypto World

Ethereum L2 Builders Debate Scaling Role After Vitalik’s Rollup Rethink

Published

2 minutes ago

4 February 2026

NewsAdmin

Ethereum L2 Builders Debate Scaling Role After Vitalik’s Rollup Rethink

Several layer-2 builders responded after Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said the original vision of L2s as the primary scaling engine “no longer makes sense,” calling for a shift toward specialization.

In a Wednesday post, Buterin argued that many L2s have failed to fully inherit Ethereum’s security due to continued reliance on multisig bridges, while the base layer is increasingly capable of handling more throughput via gas-limit increases and future native rollups.

The comments prompted responses from Ethereum layer 2s, who broadly agreed that rollups must evolve beyond being cheaper versions of Ethereum but diverged on whether scaling should remain central to their role.

The Ethereum ecosystem is grappling with a shifting roadmap that aims to make the base layer more capable, while L2s reposition themselves as specialized environments serving distinct technical needs.

Ethereum L2 builders accept shift, differ on scaling’s role

Karl Floersch, a co-founder of the Optimism Foundation, said in an X post that he welcomed the challenge of building a modular L2 stack that supports “the full spectrum of decentralization.”

He also acknowledged that major hurdles exist. These include long withdrawal windows, the lack of production-ready Stage 2 proofs and insufficient tooling for cross-chain apps.

“Stage 2 isn’t production-ready,” Floersch wrote, adding that existing proofs are not yet secure enough to support major bridges. He also supported native Ethereum precompile for rollups, a concept that Buterin recently emphasized as a way to make trustless verification more accessible.

Steven Goldfeder, the co-founder of Arbitrum developer Offchain Labs, took a more forceful stance in a lengthy X thread. He argued that while the rollup model has evolved, scaling remains a core value of L2s.

Goldfeder said Arbitrum was not built as a “service to Ethereum,” but because Ethereum provides a high-security, low-cost settlement layer that makes large-scale rollups viable.

He also pushed back on the idea that a scaled Ethereum mainnet could replace the throughput currently handled by L2 networks. Goldfeder cited periods of high activity when Arbitrum and Base processed over 1,000 transactions per second, while Ethereum handled fewer.

He warned that if Ethereum was perceived to be hostile to rollups, institutions might launch independent layer-1 chains rather than deploy on Ethereum.

Base frames differentiation, Starknet hints alignment

Jesse Pollak, head of Base, said in an X post that Ethereum’s L1 scaling was “a win for the entire ecosystem.” He agreed that L2s cannot just be “Ethereum but cheaper.”

Pollak said Base has focused on onboarding users and developers while working toward Stage 2 decentralization, adding that differentiation through applications, account abstraction and privacy features align with the direction Buterin outlined.

StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson, whose company develops the non-EVM Starknet rollup, offered a brief but pointed reaction on X, writing: “Say Starknet without saying Starknet.”

Ben-Sasson’s comment hinted that some ZK-native L2s see themselves as already fitting the specialized role Buterin described.