Zerohash Europe B.V., the company's Netherlands-registered EU subsidiary, announced receipt of its Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license from De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) on May 18, 2026. The exact formal grant date has not been independently confirmed against DNB records.

The grant makes Zerohash, according to the company, the first firm already holding a Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR) authorization to also obtain EMI status under rules clarified by the European Banking Authority (EBA) in June 2025. The combined licenses allow Zerohash to offer stablecoin infrastructure, cross-border payments, and on/off-ramp services across all 30 European Economic Area (EEA) member states.

---

Why Two Licenses Are Required

MiCA, the EU's comprehensive crypto legal framework, covers crypto-asset service providers broadly. However, fiat-pegged stablecoins fall into a separate category under EU law called E-Money Tokens (EMTs). Firms that issue or transfer EMTs on behalf of clients trigger obligations under a pre-existing payments directive, the Electronic Money Directive 2, which requires a standalone EMI or Payment Institution license. The EBA clarified this dual requirement in Opinion EBA/Op/2025/08 last June, setting a compliance deadline of March 1, 2026. Firms considering this path should also note that capital requirements under MiCA and EMD2 do not stack with an offset: each regime demands its own separate capital buffer, and one euro of capital cannot be counted toward both obligations simultaneously.

Zerohash's EMI grant confirms it cleared that hurdle. The grant was announced on May 18, 2026, roughly two and a half months after the March 1, 2026 compliance deadline; Zerohash has not publicly clarified the status of its application during that interim period.

"Europe has a massive market for stablecoin applications," said Roeland Goldberg, Zerohash's Managing Director for Europe, in the company's announcement via GlobeNewswire.

The company's prior MiCA authorization came from the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) in October 2025. Holding both licenses now allows Zerohash to legally move stablecoins including USDC, USDT, PYUSD, RLUSD, and DAI across EEA markets without needing separate registrations in each country.

---

Company Background and Scale

Zerohash was founded in 2017 and operates as a business-to-business infrastructure provider. Its model is API-first: enterprise clients embed Zerohash's rails into their own products rather than routing customers to a Zerohash-branded interface. The company reports 75 or more enterprise clients, over five million KYC-verified end users, and more than $60 billion in total transactions processed. Named clients include Morgan Stanley, Interactive Brokers, Franklin Templeton, Stripe, Worldpay, E-Trade, and BlackRock (via Securitize).

In January 2026, Interactive Brokers used Zerohash's infrastructure to launch 24/7 USDC stablecoin funding for brokerage accounts across the EEA, a service available to roughly 450 million people in the region. Interactive Brokers led Zerohash's $104 million Series D-2 round in September 2025, which valued the company at $1 billion, with participation from Morgan Stanley, SoFi, Apollo, and Jump Crypto.

In March 2026, Zerohash also filed for a national trust bank charter with the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, extending its regulatory ambitions beyond Europe.

Reports from Finance Magnates and Fortune indicated that Mastercard entered advanced acquisition talks with Zerohash at a valuation of $1.5 to $2 billion. Both companies declined to comment on those reports. Zerohash has not confirmed any transaction and continues to operate independently as of publication.

---

What This Means for South Asia and Africa

The dual licensing has direct relevance for remittance corridors connecting Europe to South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, two regions with among the highest rates of stablecoin adoption growth globally.

India ranks first globally in crypto adoption, Pakistan third, and Bangladesh fourteenth in TRM Labs' 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index. The UAE-Pakistan remittance corridor alone moves $24 billion annually. South Asia is one of the highest-volume destinations for European-origin remittances. Indian fintech firms serving EU-based clients in payments or payroll can embed Zerohash's infrastructure without engaging the Indian regulatory perimeter directly, since the transactional activity originates within the EEA.

Traditional rails on these corridors charge fees averaging five to seven percent. A licensed stablecoin infrastructure layer operating across 30 EEA states creates a compliant European origination point that South Asian fintech developers and diaspora-focused apps can connect to through a single API.

Pakistan's Q4 2025 regulatory sandbox, which approved three stablecoin remittance providers for pilots, signals that receiving-side infrastructure is also taking shape.

The Africa picture is similarly significant. Sub-Saharan Africa received over $205 billion in on-chain value between July 2024 and June 2025, a 52 percent increase year over year, according to Ripple. Nigeria ranked 6th and Ethiopia ranked 12th in TRM Labs' 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index.

Mobile money accounts now reach 40 percent of adults in Sub-Saharan Africa, providing the on-ramp layer that stablecoin settlement infrastructure can plug into. African fintech firms targeting the Nigerian or Ghanaian diaspora in Europe now have access to a single counterparty holding the highest tier of EU regulatory standing.

---

Market Context and What Comes Next

The broader stablecoin market provides the backdrop for this regulatory milestone. Total stablecoin supply reached $305 billion in 2025, up from roughly $150 billion in 2024. Annual on-chain stablecoin volume exceeded $4 trillion, an 83 percent increase year over year, and stablecoins now account for 30 percent of all on-chain crypto transaction volume, according to TazaPay. As of February 2026, more than 40 crypto-asset service providers had received full MiCA authorization across the EU, with the Netherlands, Germany, and Malta leading in registrations, a sign that Zerohash is staking its position within an actively growing competitive field.

The MiCA transitional period for all remaining unlicensed crypto providers expires July 1, 2026. Firms operating in the EU without either a CASP license or an EMI/Payment Institution license for EMT transfers will be in breach of EU law in roughly six weeks.

Zerohash completing this compliance path gives it a structural advantage, according to the company, and creates a documented template for other infrastructure providers seeking to operate across the full spectrum of EU crypto and payments regulation. With 30 EEA markets now accessible under a single regulatory umbrella, the dual-license framework positions compliant cross-border infrastructure as the defining competitive moat for the next generation of global fintech development.