MiCA Claims Its First Casualty: Dutch Exchange Knaken Goes Bankrupt With €7 Million in Customer Money Missing

The Rotterdam District Court has declared Dutch crypto exchange Knaken bankrupt, with prosecutors alleging that roughly €7 million — about $8.1 million — in customer funds simply cannot be found. Around 30,000 customers have been locked out of their holdings since the platform went dark in early June, and a court-appointed trustee now controls whatever is left.

What Happened

The July 16 ruling covers both the operating company, Knaken Cryptohandel B.V., and its affiliated custody arm, Stichting Knaken Payments. The court found the exchange holds too little capital to repay customers in full and that a substantial coverage deficit had never been disclosed. Trustee C.F.W.A. Hamm has been handed authority over both entities.

This wasn't a normal creditor-driven bankruptcy. The Dutch Public Prosecution Service filed the petition itself in late June, invoking its rarely used power to seek a bankruptcy 'in the public interest' after warnings from financial regulator AFM about what it called a very concerning situation. Knaken fought the move, arguing its own custody structure and a proposed self-run payout plan were protection enough. The court didn't buy it.

A parallel criminal investigation is underway. On June 29, investigators from FIOD — the Netherlands' financial-crime unit — raided Knaken's premises, seizing computers, phones, and company assets. No arrests have been made, and where the missing €7 million went remains unexplained.

The MiCA Connection

Knaken's collapse is the first full-blown exchange bankruptcy of the MiCA era. The platform, which let users trade Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other assets — and once sponsored Dutch football giants Ajax and Feyenoord — never obtained the license from the AFM that Europe's Markets in Crypto-Assets framework now requires. When MiCA's transition period expired on July 1, 2025, operating without one became untenable, and Knaken went offline rather than get authorized.

That licensing gap matters for customers too. MiCA's custody rules require licensed providers to keep client assets legally separated and beyond the reach of company creditors in an insolvency. Knaken, being unlicensed, operated outside those safeguards — and Dutch regulators have confirmed crypto falls outside both the national investor compensation scheme and the deposit guarantee.

Why It Matters

Europe's regulators spent years warning that MiCA's licensing deadline would thin the herd — only around 200 firms have secured full authorization, and analysts expect roughly three in four registered European crypto companies to lose the ability to serve EU customers. Knaken shows what the messy end of that squeeze looks like: an unlicensed platform winding down badly, a multi-million-euro hole, and tens of thousands of retail users discovering an on-screen balance is not the same thing as recoverable property.

It follows AscendEX's shutdown last week after its own MiCA miss, complete with warnings that some withdrawals might never be processed. For EU crypto users, the lesson is getting expensive: if your platform doesn't hold a MiCA license, your funds are one court ruling away from a trustee's spreadsheet.

The trustee's first job is reconciling Knaken's ledgers against actual wallets and bank accounts. Only then will 30,000 customers learn what percentage of their money is coming back — if any. ☕₿