Scammers Exploit MiCA Deadline Chaos to Target Crypto Users

Crypto scammers have been impersonating financial regulators and licensed exchanges to target users who are still moving assets after the EU's licensing deadline under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA).

The scammers, who were described by 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), contact customers of firms that failed to win authorization and present themselves as staff of a regulator or an exchange.

The scammers then direct the customer to a website or account that they control, where they instruct the user to send funds. Regulators warned that they never cold-contact consumers with instructions to send funds to a particular account.

This pattern of impersonation frauds is increasing in number and potential danger, with Chainalysis reporting a 1,400% year-over-year growth in impersonation scams 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.