Austria's FMA Fines Bitpanda $81,000 for MiCA White Paper Violations

The Financial Market Authority (FMA) of Austria imposed an administrative fine of EUR 70,000 or $81,130 (roughly Rs. 77.6 lakh) on Bitpanda GmbH recently as it violated the Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCAR) of the European Union (EU), which is the first such legal penalty in the nation. In its statement, the Austrian FMA stated that Bitpanda did not provide a white paper for crypto-assets at least 20 business days before its release and distributed a marketing communication prior to the white paper being released. 

Regulator Flags Disclosure Timing and Marketing Communication Issues

Bitpanda also did not include required disclosures and contact information in a marketing communication, according to the regulator. According to Bitpanda, the matter concerned the issuance of tokens in 2025, and that it had drafted a whitepaper on the matter and presented it to the FMA. As per the report by The Block, the problems pointed out by the FMA were related only to the timing of the whitepaper and the information document associated with it. It was claimed that all the issues raised by the FMA were sorted out at once after the receipt of the notification from the regulatory body. 

In their statement to CoinDesk, Bitpanda said, “For the token launch in question, we prepared a comprehensive whitepaper in accordance with MiCAR requirements, submitted it to the FMA, and continuously coordinated the entire process with the authority [...] The points cited related exclusively to timing and formal specifications surrounding the publication of the whitepaper and an accompanying information document.”

Bitpanda, which was founded in Vienna in 2014, offers crypto products such as custody, exchange, and order execution services. The financial authority of Germany, called BaFin, granted a MiCA license to Bitpanda to provide its products to clients throughout the entire European Economic Area (EEA) region last year, while the FMA of Austria gave Bitpanda GmbH permission to offer crypto products in April 2025.
 
In early 2025, BitPanda had also received regulatory approval from the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to operate in the country. The Vienna-headquartered firm announced that it is now authorised to offer crypto-related services to British investors. To secure FCA approval, BitPanda has aligned its operations with the UK's anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regulations.