Bitget has appointed Oliver Stauber, former Bitpanda chief legal officer and former KuCoin EU head, as CEO of Bitget EU to lead the exchange’s Cryptocurrency Market Regulation (MiCA) expansion and establish a new European headquarters in Vienna.
The company, which applied for a MiCA license in Austria in 2025, expects regulatory approval in the second quarter of 2026 and will not offer services in the European Economic Area (EEA) until it receives approval, Stauber told Cointelegraph.
He said Bitget EU is designed to ring-fence EEA users from offshore Bitget platforms through Internet Protocol (IP) address detection and enhanced Know Your Customer (KYC) controls to prevent unlicensed entities from onboarding residents through geographic circumvention, marketing, or reverse solicitation.
“Oliver’s appointment increases our confidence in BitGet’s long-term presence in Europe,” BitGet CEO Gracie Chen said in a release shared with Cointelegraph.
He added that he brought the “necessary regulatory fluency and operational discipline” to establish Bitget’s EU headquarters in Austria.
According to the release, the new entity will also apply strict token listing criteria and only offer assets that meet MiCA’s white paper, liquidity and disclosure standards.
Oliver Stover, former legal director of Bitpanda. Source: Biget
“We are currently conducting a rigorous audit of our inventory,” Stauber said. “Products that do not meet EU standards for market integrity or do not provide adequate consumer disclosure will not be offered to EEA users.”
Related: KuCoin hires former LSEG executive Sabina Liu to lead MiCA expansion in Europe
Broker models, best execution and market abuse controls
Stauber said Bitget EU will operate as a broker rather than an exchange, acting as the counterparty to all customer trades while sourcing liquidity from a variety of independent providers based on best execution principles.
He said the “look and feel” of the Bitget EU website closely mirrors the existing platform, but has a clear legal structure to reduce market risks for customers in the European Union, and is subject to the expectations of MiCA and the European Securities and Markets Authority regarding market integrity, as well as national conduct rules.
The company also plans to introduce market surveillance tools to detect and prevent market abuse and other manipulative or disorderly trading.
Vienna hub supports Bitget’s long-term EU strategy
Vienna was chosen as Bitget’s EU location due to its central location, multilingual talent pool and stable regulatory environment, making it well-suited to serve as a governance and compliance hub for the EEA business, Stauber said.
Existing EEA users on Bitget’s global platform will be invited to migrate to Bitget EU upon approval, and the new entity will provide EU-compliant services.
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