Bridge Building, the entity of Stripe-owned stablecoin infrastructure company Bridge, has appeared on the register of MiCA e-money token (EMT) issuers published by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), raising the number of licensed EMT issuers in the EU to 42. According to TokenPost, Bridge had already obtained crypto-asset service provider (CASP) status and an electronic money institution (EMI) license from Luxembourg’s Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) on July 2. This registration means it can issue and distribute EMTs across the EU as a regulated entity. The regulatory basis is Regulation (EU) 2023/1114, known as MiCA. Its stablecoin provisions have applied since June 30, 2024, and the full regulation has applied since December 30, 2024.
Editorial Take: What This News Means for the Card in Your Wallet
The conclusion first: this is not “good news for USDT.” It is news about USDT continuing to be routed around in the EU. The MiCA EMT register is a whitelist of who may legally issue fiat-referenced stablecoins in the EU, and ₮ is still not on it. The longer the list and the more compliant issuers there are, the more confident EU payment channels will be in removing non-compliant stablecoins from their settlement chains.
For cards specifically:
- Products whose issuer is in the EEA (exchange-affiliated and EMI-based products such as Bybit Card and Crypto.com Visa) are affected most directly. A common setup for these cards is to record balances in USDT on the user side while converting to euros or a compliant stablecoin on the institutional settlement side. More compliant issuers will only make that conversion smoother, and it may also be pushed up into the layer users can see: you deposit ₮, but your account balance is displayed as EUR or as a specific EMT.
- Asia-Pacific products, such as MPCard’s Asia Elite variant, are not directly bound by MiCA in the short term. Their card BIN, clearing path, and cardholder location all sit outside the EU’s regulatory reach. MiCA governs “offering stablecoins or stablecoin services to the public within the EU,” not which chain you use to top up.
- EU residents: if you are choosing a card, then for the products in the comparison of U cards for EU residents, the thing most worth watching over the next 90 days is not fees but each issuer’s EU licensed entity and its disclosure of settlement currencies.
Expected timeline: within 7 days, no user-visible change; within 30 days, you may see Bridge-related EMT products go live on the EU payment-institution side; within 90 days at the earliest, the effect may reach U card product terms, usually as a settlement currency quietly added to or swapped in the service agreement.
Historical Comparison: Circle in 2024, and How This Time Differs
In July 2024, Circle obtained an EMI license from France’s ACPR and became the first global MiCA-compliant stablecoin issuer. EEA exchanges then delisted or restricted euro trading pairs for non-compliant stablecoins in turn, narrowing the trading and deposit paths for USDT in the EU. That round was “a leading issuer gets licensed, forcing exchanges to adjust.”
This time the difference is that the initiator is a payments company, not an issuer. Bridge is built on API-based stablecoin payment infrastructure, and Stripe is its parent company. In other words, the push this round comes from the merchant-acquiring side, the end that actually determines where the money goes after your card is swiped. The path is otherwise identical: obtain an EMI/CASP license, get onto the ESMA register, and shrink the usable area for non-compliant currencies.
Another useful comparison is March 2023, when USDC briefly lost its peg because of the Silicon Valley Bank incident. That risk came from the reserve custodian bank and was a market risk. This time the risk comes from licensing eligibility and is an access risk. The former shows up in prices within hours; the latter shows up over several quarters as “whether your card can still be topped up with this coin.” For ordinary cardholders, the second is slower but harder to reverse.
Compliance Boundaries: What Is Clear and What Is Not
In the EU, the boundaries are actually clearer than many people assume. For specifics, see the EU U card compliance guide:
- Clearly permitted: paying with EMTs that are on the ESMA register, and custody and exchange services provided by licensed CASPs/EMIs.
- Clearly restricted: “publicly offering” unauthorized EMTs to the EU public, and CASPs providing trading services for them. This is the legal root of USDT being restricted on EEA platforms.
- Gray area: individuals holding ₮ themselves, and spending through card products issued by non-EU entities. MiCA constrains issuers and service providers, not individual holders. But once your card issuer has an EU entity or intends to enter the EU, it will tighten this gray area on your behalf.
Readers who are unfamiliar with the basics of U cards should read What Is a U Card first, then decide which category they fall into.
Milestones to Watch Next
- The next update to the ESMA EMT register: how far the number 42 rises, and whether more euro EMT issuers appear, is the most direct indicator of whether euro stablecoins are truly gaining volume.
- Bridge/Stripe’s EU product announcements: watch whether its EMT is USD-pegged or EUR-pegged, and whether it connects to Visa/Mastercard card issuing channels.
- Tether’s EU path: whether ₮ will “apply on its own” or “have a licensed third party issue an EU-specific token.” This choice directly determines whether EU U cards can keep denominating in ₮.
- Version-change dates of issuers’ terms of service: changes to the “supported deposit assets” line in the terms often come before the press release.
Editorial Recommendations
- Users of Asia-Pacific cards (including MPCard Asia Elite) need to do nothing. This news does not intersect with your card’s BIN or settlement path, so don’t switch cards because of it.
- EU residents whose card issuer is in the EEA: within the next 30 days, confirm two things on the issuer’s official page: the name of the regulated entity and the list of “supported deposit assets.” Don’t rely on fee screenshots relayed by third parties.
- Users planning to apply for a new EU-issued card: no need to delay, but put “is it on the ESMA register / does it hold a CASP license” on your card-selection checklist, ranked ahead of cashback rate.
- Users paying for overseas subscriptions with a U card (for example, the ChatGPT Plus subscription scenario): this news does not affect your current payment success rate. MiCA governs the issuing side, not 3DS and risk controls on the acquiring side.
All fees, limits, and supported currencies are subject to the issuer’s official pages. usdtcard.net does not conduct independent on-chain testing; the ratings and judgments in this article are based on the public regulatory documents and official sources above.