Bridge crosses MiCA: Stripe's stablecoin arm lands on EU's growing list of 42

Bridge Building, the Luxembourg-based entity behind Stripe-owned stablecoin infrastructure company Bridge, has been added to the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) register following regulatory approval in Luxembourg, according to an update published Wednesday by the European Securities and Markets Authority.

The addition brings the number of MiCA-authorized electronic money token issuers in the EU register to 42. It comes weeks after Bridge announced on July 2 that it had secured Crypto-Asset Service Provider authorization under MiCA and an Electronic Money Institution licence from Luxembourg's Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier. Bridge's Head of Product, Mai Leduc Blount, said the approvals allow businesses in the EU to build stablecoin and payment products under a regulated framework.

The same ESMA update added three new CASP entries from Germany, including Volksbank Die Gestalterbank, VBU Volksbank im Unterland and VR-Bank Erding, bringing the total number of authorized CASPs in the EU register to 324. The update showed no changes to asset-referenced token authorizations, with no ART issuers listed, and the list of non-compliant crypto-asset companies remained unchanged.

ESMA has increased the frequency of its MiCA register updates in recent weeks, with several revisions issued in July.