Regulator

Austria’s Financial Market Authority Fines Bitpanda €70,000 Over MiCAR Breaches

co-written by newsrooms.ai17. August 2026, 07:30

Austria’s Financial Market Authority (FMA) has imposed a fine of 70,000 euros on Bitpanda GmbH. This emerges from an announcement by the regulator dated 14 August 2026. The case concerns several breaches of Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 on Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCAR). The penalty decision is final.

Three findings on white papers and marketing

The FMA lists three points in its announcement:

Late submission: A crypto-asset white paper was not submitted to the FMA at least 20 working days before publication, contrary to Art. 8(1) and (5) MiCAR.
Marketing before publication: Contrary to Art. 7(2) MiCAR, a marketing communication was distributed before the required white paper had been published.
Missing mandatory information: One marketing communication lacked the statement that the white paper has not been reviewed or approved by any authority and that the offeror bears sole responsibility (Art. 7(1)(e)), as well as a telephone number and email address (Art. 7(1)(d)).

The FMA does not name the token or the specific white paper concerned.

Proceedings closed under an accelerated procedure

According to the FMA, the case was concluded under the accelerated procedure of Section 22(2b) of the Financial Market Authority Act (FMABG). That provision allows a company to validly waive its right of appeal before the decision is issued, provided it is aware of the operative wording at that point. In such cases the decision does not need to state reasons, and the penalty becomes final immediately. Under established administrative practice, waiving an appeal does not automatically amount to an admission of guilt on the merits, but it substantially shortens the process. The maximum penalties MiCAR provides for legal entities in respect of white paper and marketing breaches are considerably higher than the amount imposed here.

Limited financial impact

Measured against the size of the company, the fine carries little weight. In the white paper itself, Bitpanda GmbH reports a net profit of roughly 61.7 million euros for the 2024 financial year, up from 13.6 million euros in 2023; total assets stood at around 1.03 billion euros in 2024. The 70,000 euros therefore amount to roughly one-thousandth of the 2024 profit.

The picture is similar at group level. For 2025, Bitpanda reported adjusted revenue of 371 million euros and adjusted EBITDA of 13 million euros, with unadjusted EBITDA at 21 million euros (Trending Topics reported). The sanction thus does not represent a material financial burden. The reputational dimension is likely to matter more, given that Bitpanda is preparing an IPO for 2026 and has for years positioned its regulatory compliance as a competitive advantage.

Timing points to the Vision token

In 2025, Bitpanda introduced Vision (VSN), a new token replacing its previous BEST and Pantos (PAN) tokens. The MiCAR white paper for VSN gives 6 June 2025 as the date of notification, but 9 July 2025 as the publication date and the start of the public offering. The offeror is Bitpanda GmbH; the issuer is the Swiss VISION web3 Foundation, based in Zug.

Bitpanda had promoted the token publicly before that date. The non-binding “Vision Paper” is dated 10 June 2025, and the token launch was announced on 12 June 2025. VSN eventually went live on 16 July 2025 and was listed on exchanges including Kraken, KuCoin, Gate.io and MEXC (Trending Topics reported).

The FMA has not confirmed whether the penalty decision relates to this white paper.

White paper obligations have applied since the end of 2024

Any argument about teething problems with a newly effective rulebook would not go far here. MiCAR entered into force on 29 June 2023 but became applicable in stages: Titles III and IV, covering asset-referenced tokens and e-money tokens, have applied since 30 June 2024, while Title II — the section containing Art. 4 to 15, from which the provisions cited by the FMA are drawn — has applied since 30 December 2024. The regulation has been fully applicable since that date.

On its information page on the issuance of crypto-assets, the FMA states that offerors of crypto-assets other than ARTs or EMTs must draw up a white paper under Title II and submit it to the authority at least 20 days before publication, unless an exemption applies. A grandfathering rule does exist: under Art. 143(1) MiCAR, Title II does not apply to offers that had already ended before 30 December 2024. For crypto-assets offered publicly after that date, a white paper under Art. 4 et seq. is required.

According to the white paper, the VSN offering began on 9 July 2025 — around six months after the regulation became fully applicable.

First published MiCAR penalty decision in Austria

Alongside the announcement, the FMA published a separate note placing the case in context. It is the first final MiCAR penalty decision the authority has published. According to the regulator, this shows that MiCAR has moved beyond licensing and supervision into enforcement, and that innovation and consistent enforcement are not in conflict. The FMA explicitly notes that being the first published case does not in itself give the company concerned or the breaches identified any special status.

Bitpanda was the first company to receive authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider under Art. 63 MiCAR from the FMA, in April 2025. The Bitpanda group also holds MiCAR licences from Germany’s BaFin and Malta’s MFSA.

MiCAR is intended to create a uniform EU-wide legal framework for crypto-assets. The white paper and marketing obligations in Art. 6 to 8 are among the provisions serving investor protection and market transparency.