The European regulation of cryptocurrencies, known as the MiCA regulation, has reshaped the digital asset landscape on the continent. Far from the wild west that had dominated the early years of the industry, Brussels has managed to put fences around the field. To the point that the major player in the market, the giant Binance, has not been able to acquire the community permit to operate in the EU, and retired on July 1st. The new framework imposed by the European Commission aims to offer security to investors, and part of the sector crypto has taken the regulation as a business loophole. Catalonia is proof of this: the first cryptocurrency platform created in the country, Venga, received the MiCA license last week to operate in the region with a model far removed from the market’s image. “We are an app for people who are new to the space. We built it from scratch so you can enter it easily,” explains the company’s executive director, Michael Stroev, in conversation with the “Companies.
Come on, with a first look, it shows a host of differences with traditional cryptocurrency platforms. Binance or Kraken, the applications used by the most established audience in the sector, fill the screens with charts and deep investment exploration tools; useful for the most expert, but which can “overwhelm” the general public, in Stroev’s assessment. On the other hand, the Catalan one aspired from birth to offer “technical robustness” that allows a simple entry point to investment products at the blockchain. “We prioritize making it easy for the user to educate themselves within the app and make informed decisions,” insists the entrepreneur. The interface offers the basic movements of the investor crypto: buy, sell, exchange, send and custody digital assets; as well as obtain the financial returns they generate “with more clarity, less noise and a regulated experience”.
In fact, Stroev claims Venga as a platform far removed from the traditional dynamics of cryptocurrencies. The imagined client of the Catalan company is stable, and seeks to add digital assets to their long-term investment portfolio, as a complement to equities or other traditional financial bets. The executive is emphatic in differentiating the company from the trading model that has dominated the space in the last decade. “We are not an exchange, we are not attractive to traders who buy and sell quickly,” he observes. This niche is already more than well occupied by large portfolios. For Venga, “the game is financial education and user experience”.
“Tired of globalization”
According to Stroev, the usability of the application is one of the two pillars of the project that Venga represents. The other seems like an oxymoron in a decentralized and impersonal world like that of digital assets: “localization, we aim to be local.” It is striking, when opening the company’s website, that the default language is Catalan. “I find it extremely important that there are products that speak in the same way as the communities they are aimed at,” opines the executive. The platform’s Catalan vocation is clear: in fact, in the statement with which they announced the obtaining of the European license, Stroev went so far as to assure that “the future of digital finance is being built in Catalan and from Catalonia.”
“I grew up in the era of globalization and, honestly, I’m a bit tired of it,” jokes the co-founder. In this regard, he insists on articulating a value proposition intimately directed at the society he speaks to. “We could translate the website into many languages and operate everywhere, but that would put us in the same boat as everyone else,” concludes Stroev.
The company is still young: it was born in 2023, and did not launch its customer acquisition campaign until November 2025, when it completed the adaptation process to MiCA. Since then, Stroev celebrates that “the hypothesis has been confirmed”: in just over seven months, Venga has attracted more than 30,000 users, mostly Catalans or from Spain. “I can confidently say that the idea is working,” the entrepreneur beams.
Simple products
The facilities that Venga has sought to imprint on its platform are also reflected in its product portfolio. One of the problems that anchored Binance when it came to obtaining the European license was a gigantic and extremely complex offer of investment possibilities, many of them impossible to control in terms of, for example, transparency or traceability of investments. Stroev, however, jokes that “whenever the market looks to the right, you have to look to the left”; and claims “simple products to enter the world “crypto.
In fact, remember that part of the company’s long optimization process to adapt to European regulations was dedicated to studying the value proposition. In the more than two years that Venga was focused on fitting within MiCA’s requirements, Stroev recalls that they had to “eliminate at least two products that did not comply” with the regulation. “Venga has been built from scratch to fit into the law’s demands,” boasts the co-founder. A law that, in the company’s opinion, has performed a “necessary cleanup in the European market”; and has generated what Stroev describes as the “third wave of demand for cryptoassets,” with a new, less risky consumer, who lands in the sector spurred on by the regulator’s guardrails and the new financial certainties that Europe brings.
From now on, with the regulatory requirements met, Venga will begin working on “new products and features” for the application. The task, however, will not be dedicated to adding more financial layers for investors, but to facilitating their access to the product. “Before the end of the year, we will have launched multiple innovations that will allow users to worry even less when they first enter the world of crypto“, indicates Stroev. However, the objective of “high-quality profiles that know the brand” is maintained. “It’s okay not to be attractive to everyone,” he concludes.
