A person walks past a Bitcoin ATM in a mall in Madrid, on March 7, 2025. (Photo by Thomas COEX / AFP) (Photo by THOMAS COEX/AFP via Getty Images)
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Eighteen months makes a world of difference in crypto banking. In October 2023, specialized crypto banks faced existential threats from regulators on multiple continents. BCB Group was under a Section 166 investigation in the UK. Signature Bank and Silvergate had collapsed. American institutions like Customers Bank and United Texas Bank were under regulatory scrutiny for their crypto services. The message was clear: touching digital assets made you a target.
Fast forward to November 2025 and the story has completely reversed. Amina Bank, a Swiss crypto banking pioneer, just secured a Markets in Crypto-Assets license through its Austrian subsidiary. The license gives the firm passporting rights across thirty European markets. The company is targeting six billion dollars in assets under management by year end, up from around 300 million eighteen months ago. Assets grew 140 percent last year while revenue climbed 70 percent.
The regulatory environment hasn’t just thawed. It’s reversed completely. Crypto banks went from pariahs to pioneers, and the transformation reveals more about regulatory coordination than crypto adoption itself.
When Regulators Declared War on Crypto Banking
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – AUGUST 22: U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) speaks on stage during the final day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on August 22, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. Delegates, politicians, and Democratic Party supporters are gathering in Chicago, as current Vice President Kamala Harris is named her party’s presidential nominee. The DNC takes place from August 19-22. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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The 2023-2024 period represented an existential crisis for crypto banking. American regulators treated institutions serving digital asset companies as inherently suspicious rather than regulated entities performing necessary financial functions. The approach went beyond prudential supervision into what felt like coordinated suppression.
Consider the casualties. Signature Bank and Silvergate Bank, which had pioneered real-time payment networks allowing rapid settlement between crypto exchanges, both collapsed in early 2023. While Silvergate’s failure stemmed partly from business model problems, Signature’s seizure by regulators raised questions about whether crypto exposure itself had become disqualifying.
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority launched a Section 166 investigation into BCB Group, one of the few European banks actively serving crypto clients. Section 166 investigations grant regulators sweeping powers to examine every aspect of a firm’s operations. Meanwhile, Customers Bank and United Texas Bank in America faced their own regulatory scrutiny for crypto banking activities.
Even asking why someone would become a crypto banker seemed reasonable. Franz Bergmueller, CEO of Amina Bank, recalls the skepticism when he joined the firm three and a half years ago.
“People asked me, hey Franz, what are you doing? Why are you joining a crypto bank? Nobody needs a crypto bank, you know, remove the middleman, the centralized systems.”
The regulatory message was unmistakable: crypto banking was dangerous, potentially illegitimate, and certainly not a category regulators wanted to encourage. Traditional banks with crypto exposure faced capital requirements that made the business uneconomic. New entrants found licensing nearly impossible. The few specialized crypto banks that existed operated under constant regulatory suspicion.
The European Exception
Then Europe did something improbable. Thirty countries that struggle to agree on fiscal policy, immigration, or military spending somehow built unified crypto regulation. The Markets in Crypto-Assets framework provides clear licensing standards, passporting rights across member states, and institutional confidence that American regulation still lacks.
Bergmueller admits surprise at the achievement.
“I would never have imagined that Europe can agree on one crypto license for 30 countries. Wow, big step, right?”
MiCA creates a Crypto-Asset Service Provider license that works across the European Union plus Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein. A firm licensed in one jurisdiction can passport services throughout the block. This eliminates the patchwork of national regulations that previously forced crypto companies to secure separate licenses in each market.
For Amina, the Austrian Financial Market Authority granted a CASP license in October 2025. The license authorizes custody of crypto assets, exchange of crypto assets for fiat currencies or other crypto assets, transfer services, and portfolio management of crypto assets. The firm has already notified thirteen additional European countries of its intent to operate and can expand across the entire MiCA framework.
Austria was chosen strategically. “Austria was chosen as Amina EU’s European entry point because of its regulatory excellence and strong commitment to investor protection,” according to the firm’s announcement. Smaller jurisdictions sometimes move faster than larger ones, creating templates for broader adoption. Switzerland pioneered this approach in 2019 when FINMA issued specialized crypto banking licenses. Austria is replicating the pattern at European scale.
The services Amina can now provide across Europe include everything traditional banks offer plus digital asset capabilities: trading, custody, staking, portfolio management. Professional investors, family offices, corporates, and financial institutions can access these services through a regulated provider rather than navigating unregulated alternatives.
The Crypto Banking Business Model That Survived
Amina’s growth validates the specialized crypto banking model. The firm is targeting six billion dollars in assets under management by end of 2025, with sixty million dollars in revenue. Last year saw 140 percent volume growth and 70 percent revenue growth. These aren’t speculative projections. They reflect actual business from clients who need regulated crypto banking services.
The revenue model works across multiple lines. Crypto-backed lending generates substantial margin. Clients who accumulated bitcoin or ethereum years ago need liquidity without liquidating positions they believe will appreciate further. Amina lends against crypto collateral with zero bad debt over six years of operation, including through the recent market volatility.
“We started six years ago. We have also, through all market cycles, and the last one was like 10 days ago, where the market moved big time, we’ve never lost money,” Bergmueller explains. The key is client selection. “Our clients are crypto rich. They are not in need of money. They’re only looking for liquidity.”
When markets drop and collateral values decline, margin calls are straightforward. Clients add collateral rather than defaulting. The 24/7 automated systems monitor positions constantly. Regulators call during volatility asking how the bank is handling market stress. The answer is always the same: everything is under control.
Trading generates significant revenue, particularly options trading. Custody services attract software engineers who mined bitcoin early and question the security of alternative storage solutions. Amina built custom cold storage that satisfies both regulators and cryptographically sophisticated clients. Staking provides yield on proof-of-stake assets while maintaining custody.
White label services for traditional banks represent growing revenue. When Julius Baer clients buy bitcoin, they’re using Amina’s infrastructure. Traditional banks have client relationships but lack crypto technical capabilities. Specialized crypto banks provide the invisible infrastructure making institutional adoption possible.
The business model works because it solves real problems for clients who can afford premium services. These aren’t retail speculators chasing overnight gains. They’re professional investors, family offices, and institutions needing regulated access to digital assets.
America’s Crypto Enthusiasm Without Infrastructure
Despite the new administration’s vocal support for crypto and legislative efforts like the Genius and Clarity Act, Bergmueller sees America lagging Europe on regulatory clarity. The enthusiasm exists but infrastructure doesn’t.
“Even with the Genius and the Clarity Act, there is a long way to go for them to sort out things,” Bergmueller observes from New York, where he regularly meets with American institutions. “At least if I speak to my partners in the United States or business people, right, they are all like excited, but it needs more clarity. There’s some work to do for them.”
American traditional institutions want crypto exposure for clients. They lack clear pathways to provide it. Political support doesn’t automatically translate into regulatory frameworks that let banks actually offer services. The gap between enthusiasm and execution persists.
European banks can now partner with MiCA-licensed providers like Amina to offer crypto services. American banks remain constrained despite political tailwinds. The regulatory clarity advantage belongs to Europe regardless of America’s innovation history or capital depth.
This creates opportunity for multi-jurisdictional players. Amina operates under Swiss banking license from FINMA, Financial Services Permission from Abu Dhabi’s FSRA, Type 1, 4, and 9 licenses from Hong Kong’s SFC with digital asset dealing authorization, and now CASP licensing under MiCA. Each jurisdiction provides different advantages: Swiss credibility, Middle Eastern capital access, Asian market depth, European distribution scale.
The Global Race For Crypto’s Wall Street
Bergmueller frames the current moment as competition over which region becomes the dominant crypto financial center.
The Middle East, particularly the UAE and Abu Dhabi Global Market, offers business-friendly regulation and capital from sovereign wealth funds and family offices. Hong Kong is opening aggressively after China’s cautious approach to digital assets. Europe achieved coordination through MiCA that seemed impossible given the continent’s typical regulatory fragmentation. America has enthusiasm, capital, and innovation but lacks clarity.
The advantage flows to jurisdictions providing certainty even if they lack historical dominance. Regulatory clarity matters more than market size for institutional adoption. Institutions need to know what’s legal, what’s compliant, and what their obligations are. Enthusiasm without frameworks leaves institutions unable to act regardless of client demand.
Amina’s positioning across four continents with multiple licenses demonstrates how regulatory fragmentation creates opportunity. Rather than waiting for one dominant framework, the firm built compliance infrastructure for multiple jurisdictions. When MiCA provided European clarity, Amina was ready to expand immediately.
Crypto Banks: From Persecution To Validation
The transformation from regulatory target to regulated expansion represents complete reversal. Specialized crypto banks survived hostility that killed competitors and emerged positioned to capture institutional adoption. The survivors weren’t lucky. They were early to jurisdictions like Switzerland that built frameworks rather than barriers.
The surprise isn’t crypto banking’s success. Digital assets require banking infrastructure just like any financial asset class. The surprise is Europe’s regulatory leadership. MiCA provides institutional confidence through coordination that America, despite innovation advantages, hasn’t achieved.
Bergmueller’s experience captures the shift. Three years ago, people questioned why anyone would join a crypto bank. Now traditional institutions knock on the door asking for white label services to serve client demand. The question isn’t whether crypto banking exists but which jurisdiction builds the dominant framework first.
Amina’s growth from 300 million to six billion dollars in assets under management over eighteen months shows what happens when regulation provides clarity instead of obstruction. Institutional demand existed throughout the hostile regulatory period. It just lacked channels for expression. MiCA opened those channels in Europe while America debates definitions.
The regulatory reversal is complete. Crypto banks went from pariahs to pioneers. The jurisdictions that provided clarity first captured the institutional adoption that follows. America retains enthusiasm and capital but lost first-mover advantage to European coordination. That’s the real story of crypto banking’s transformation from regulatory target to regulated success.
