Coinbase’s One-Time MiCA Stablecoin Conversion Runs Friday for EEA Users

Any of 14 stablecoins still sitting in EEA retail Coinbase accounts on Friday, Oct. 30, will be swapped out by Coinbase (COIN), which says in a help-center notice that the tokens fall short of the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) rules.

The tokens include Tether’s USDT, PayPal’s PYUSD, World Liberty Financial’s USD1, Sky’s USDS and DAI, along with Paxos’ PAX and gold-backed PAXG, plus GUSD, GYEN, BUST, UST, RAI, MUSD and TGBP. Buying, selling and converting all of them on Coinbase in the European Economic Area is already restricted. Holders who want to keep the tokens have to move them to an external wallet by Oct. 30; Coinbase says withdrawal is the only option left. Coinbase’s help page has carried the deadline since at least mid-October.

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Whatever is still on the platform on Oct. 30 gets swapped at the market rate when the conversion runs. The proceeds land in USDC where Coinbase considers that suitable, and otherwise in another crypto asset or currency the exchange supports. “This is a one-time conversion of the balance held on that date,” the notice says.

Tokens sent to a Coinbase account after the deadline won’t be credited, traded or converted. The exchange says it may be able to send some back through its unsupported crypto recovery process, but that the process doesn’t cover every asset or network and offers no guarantee. Coinbase also cautioned that swapping one crypto asset for another can be taxable in some jurisdictions.

The notice covers retail customers of Coinbase Luxembourg S.A., which Luxembourg’s financial regulator, the CSSF, has authorized as a crypto-asset service provider under MiCA. Coinbase points to MiCA’s transitional period for stablecoin issuers, which the notice says “ended on July 1, 2026, and was not extended,” leaving it unable to support coins from issuers that aren’t MiCA-authorized.

In December 2024, Coinbase Europe Limited and Coinbase Germany GmbH restricted six stablecoins for their retail users starting Dec. 13: USDT, PAX, PYUSD, GUSD, GYEN and DAI. At the time, Coinbase gave customers the choice to sell, convert to USDC or EURC, or move the tokens off the platform. The list now also includes USD1, USDS and six others, and leftover balances will be converted by default.

USDC is issued by Circle (CRCL), whose token the European Banking Authority this month classified as MiCA’s first significant e-money token. Earlier in October, the EU’s securities regulator, ESMA, said it expects crypto platforms to wind down services tied to stablecoins that aren’t MiCA-compliant, as Unchained reported. Coinbase’s notice does not mention that opinion.

Related Listen: Why Banks Failed to Kill Stablecoin Rewards in the Clarity Act

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