EU Regulators Warn of Scammers Impersonating Them in Crypto Heist

Scammers are impersonating financial regulators and licensed exchanges to target crypto holders who were displaced by the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) deadline. According to several regulators, including France's Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM), and the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), fraudsters are contacting customers of firms that failed to win authorization, presenting themselves as staff of a regulator or an exchange. They then direct the customer to a website or account controlled by the criminals.

The transitional period under MiCA closed on July 1, and ESMA's register listed 322 authorized crypto-asset service providers across 26 member states at its August 4 update. Every provider outside this list lost the right to serve EU clients. Regulators told users to move their funds, but scammers are exploiting this overlap by targeting legitimate attempts to transfer assets.

Chainalysis reported a growth of impersonation scams at 1,400% year over year in 2025, with the average payment rising from $782 to $2,764. The firm valued total crypto scam and fraud losses for the year at near $17 billion.