Regulators in the European Union are warning of a surge in impersonation fraud targeting cryptocurrency holders five weeks after the July 1 deadline for licensing under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA). Scammers, posing as officials from financial regulators or licensed exchanges, contact customers of unauthorized firms and direct them to fraudulent websites. The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and national regulators including France’s AMF and the Dutch AFM have reported this pattern. Fraudsters exploit the period where users are legitimately moving assets, as regulators had ordered unauthorized providers to stop onboarding clients and help transfer holdings. Chainalysis reports impersonation scams grew 1,400% year-over-year in 2025, with total crypto fraud losses nearing $17 billion.
Impersonation frauds are increasing in number and potential danger, according to multiple European regulators. Scammers impersonating financial regulators and licensed exchanges are targeting crypto holders who are still moving assets five weeks after the EU’s licensing deadline under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA).
This is 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 contact customers of firms that failed to win authorization, present themselves as staff of a regulator or an exchange, then direct the customer to a website or account the criminals control.
Regulators say they never cold-contact consumers with instructions to send funds to a particular account. The transitional period under MiCA closed on July 1, with ESMA’s register listing 322 authorized crypto-asset service providers across 26 member states as of its August 4 update.
ESMA’s public statement of June 23 ordered unauthorized providers to “immediately stop onboarding new EU clients” and to limit services to “actions necessary to sell or transfer crypto-assets, reallocate assets, or close positions.” Regulators said that the overlap is what the fraudsters are exploiting, with large numbers of users being legitimately told to move funds in the same window.
Authorizations clustered ahead of the cut-off, with 76 firms entering the register in June and 31 added in July. Chainalysis put the 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 nearly $17 billion. ESMA said that national competent authorities are directly engaged with the firms concerned and may now take coordinated action against unauthorized providers, as the transitional period has ended.
