Question 1

What's the difference between a licensed and a registered crypto exchange?

Accepted Answer

A licence (MiCA, Dubai VARA, Singapore MAS, Hong Kong SFC, Japan FSA, Malaysia SC, Gibraltar GFSC, or a New York DFS BitLicense) means the regulator assessed the business itself -- capital, fitness of directors, custody arrangements -- before approving it. A registration (UK FCA MLR, Canada FINTRAC, US FinCEN MSB, South Korea FIU) is anti-money-laundering supervision only: the regulator has not evaluated or approved the firm's products or conduct.

Question 2

What does MiCA authorisation mean?

Accepted Answer

MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation) is the EU's crypto-specific licensing regime. An exchange applies to one national regulator in its home EU/EEA state; once authorised there, that single licence passports across the whole EU/EEA. It's a genuine, assessed licence, not an AML-only registration.

Question 3

Is US FinCEN registration the same as a crypto licence?

Accepted Answer

No. FinCEN Money Services Business registration is federal anti-money-laundering supervision under the Bank Secrecy Act -- it does not mean the exchange's products or conduct have been assessed. FinCEN's own register also has a documented fraud problem: it warns that scammers register shell companies under recognisable brand names to appear "FinCEN approved."

Question 4

What is a BitLicense?

Accepted Answer

A BitLicense is a Virtual Currency License issued by the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) under 23 NYCRR Part 200 -- a genuine, state-chartered licence, separate from federal FinCEN registration. It's the only US state with both a dedicated crypto-specific licence and a public, checkable list of who holds one.

Question 5

What does it mean if an exchange isn't on this register?

Accepted Answer

Either it holds no licence or registration we could independently verify in any of the jurisdictions we track, or we simply haven't added it yet -- absence here is not itself an accusation. You can check directly against the primary regulator source linked on each country page, or submit the exchange's details for us to verify.

Question 6

What's the difference between an Exchange and a Technology Provider on this site?

Accepted Answer

An Exchange entry is a licence or registration record from an official regulator. A Technology Provider Profile is editorial content covering apps or platforms that are NOT independently licensed themselves, but rely on a licensed custodian or execution partner to actually hold and execute customer assets -- explicitly not part of the register.

Question 7

Who actually holds my crypto if the app I use is not itself licensed?

Accepted Answer

It depends on the app's actual business model, not its marketing. Some unlicensed-looking apps are a technology layer on top of a licensed custodian or execution partner -- see our Providers section for named examples with the partner relationship independently verified. Others may hold assets themselves with no licence at all, which is exactly the kind of gap this register exists to surface.

Question 8

What does a "Verified Facts" badge mean on a Provider Profile?

Accepted Answer

It means every regulatory claim on that profile has been checked against a primary source by us, not just repeated from the company's own disclosure. It's free and editorial -- it never depends on payment or on the company having engaged with us at all.

Question 9

What does a "Claimed Profile" badge mean?

Accepted Answer

It means the company has proven it controls that profile, via a confirmed email address and a real backlink from their own website -- required before we activate a working link to their site. It says nothing about whether the regulatory facts on the profile are verified; that's a separate "Verified Facts" badge.

Question 10

Why does it matter if a crypto exchange is regulated?

Accepted Answer

A genuine licence means a regulator assessed the business itself -- capital, custody arrangements, fitness of directors -- before approving it, and can suspend or revoke it if something goes wrong later. Neither a licence nor a registration guarantees safety, but it's the difference between "someone with the power to intervene checked this" and "no one has" -- the difference that mattered at FTX, Celsius, and every other collapsed exchange where customers turned out to be unsecured creditors rather than depositors with protected, segregated funds.

Question 11

Why do some exchanges list licences that aren't about running an exchange?

Accepted Answer

Exchanges sometimes publish their own "security" or "trust" pages listing real licences and registrations that have nothing to do with operating an exchange -- a money-lending licence, a trust-company registration, a precious-metals dealer registration -- formatted identically to a genuine exchange authorisation, so a reader skimming the page can't easily tell the difference. Holding those licences isn't necessarily dishonest on its own; the issue is presentation, not the licence. That's why we don't rely on any company's own disclosure -- every status on this register is checked against the primary regulator source directly.

Question 12

How often is this register updated?

Accepted Answer

Most jurisdictions sync automatically against the live official regulator register on a weekly schedule, with changes opened as a pull request for human review before merging -- never auto-published. A couple of sources sit behind bot protection and are refreshed manually instead; each country page states its own source and last-checked date.

Frequently Asked Questions