Crypto is Europe’s best answer to Revolut’s fintech dominance | Opinion

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Revolut’s fintech expansion across Europe and globally is severely constraining the playing field for European fintech founders. Attempting to build a European-scale fintech — which means competing directly with Revolut — has become extremely challenging, both from a product and marketing perspective.

Summary

• Revolut closed the fintech door — crypto opens a new one: Competing head-on with a 65M-user super-app is a losing game, but Revolut’s relative neglect of crypto creates a rare, defensible opening.
• MiCA turned crypto from a risk into a credential: Regulatory clarity doesn’t just unlock Europe — it boosts global trust, capital access, and turns licenses into real balance-sheet value.
• Europe is perfectly priced for crypto scale: Cheaper talent, growing stablecoin demand, and returning VC capital make crypto-finance Europe’s best shot at building the next pan-regional champion.

By September 2025, Revolut reached 65 million customers worldwide, with 12 million in the UK alone. The company has also announced a firm timeline for serving 100 million customers, aiming to hit this milestone by mid-2027. As a result, the window of opportunity for European fintech development is rapidly narrowing. Entrepreneurs are left with only two viable options: either build a super-niche project, both in terms of product and geography — think local payment services — or exploit Revolut’s main blind spot. In their pursuit of banking licenses and regulatory relationships, they haven’t been developing crypto services with sufficient intensity.

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The latter model offers several compelling advantages. Due to certain characteristics of the European startup scene, a crypto-finance project has excellent chances for global expansion, or at a minimum, pan-European growth.

Regulation

The rollout of Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation has given crypto projects a major boost — not because it specifically permitted or prohibited anything, but simply because it established clear, understandable frameworks for what a project must comply with to stay compliant in Europe.

There’s an unusual side effect to this regulation: MiCA enhances trust in crypto projects beyond Europe’s borders. For example, in Latin American markets, it creates an extremely positive attitude from regulators toward projects, so it becomes a notable green flag.

The workforce and economy

Compared to the US, hiring employees in Europe is significantly cheaper. Hiring one engineer in the US is equivalent to hiring two or three in Europe. It’s worth noting that in Europe, you can recruit the same developers or product managers from Revolut itself, which definitely makes sense in the context of expansion.

Cryptocurrency turnover is actively growing in Europe. Even our own statistics confirm that users are interested in receiving stablecoins to their accounts and using them as a means of payment.

Funding

While fintech attracted less and less money in recent years, the situation is now changing.

“If 2024 was defined by scarcity, 2025 was defined by bifurcation. The recovery in fundraising has been robust, with year-to-date figures reaching approximately €6.3 billion by September, surpassing 70% of 2024’s total.”

Part of this money is flowing into crypto, as the sector becomes institutionalized through MiCA. A license significantly capitalizes a company, transforming it in investors’ eyes from an unproven concept into a clearly understood fintech company.

“With MiCA fully live, we expect 2026 to be the year of Stablecoin Rails. Major European banks are already piloting Euro-denominated stablecoins. The ‘wild west’ of crypto is over; the institutionalization of digital assets is here, and it will likely become the standard for cross-border B2B payments.”

What could be improved?

Despite being a major benefit, MiCa still hasn’t fully solved compliance. Current legislation and regulators still stumble over crypto-specific issues when it comes to how businesses earn and spend money in crypto form. Moreover, since we’re dealing with an extremely young fintech instrument, tax incentives could facilitate its development and growth.

So if you’re feeling the pressure from Revolut on your European fintech business, we strongly advise taking a serious look at the crypto-finance market. Europe provides numerous benefits to fintech businesses that they can leverage for global expansion.

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