Good morning and welcome to Kaupr Today!

This is our first edition since Monday — the entire Kaupr team has been in Stockholm covering the Nordic Blockchain Conference. Rather than apologise for the gap, we would rather point you to what we have been doing: two days of live coverage from some of the most important talks and panel discussions of the week, posted directly on our LinkedIn page.

If you missed it — or want to go deeper — follow our coverage at Kaupr on LinkedIn.

Now, back to the news.

♦️ Norway's largest crypto exchange and a fast-growing received MiCA licences
♦️ Jack Dorsey caves — Cash App rolls out USDC to 60 million users.
♦️ BIS Project Agorá proves tokenised cross-border payments work.
♦️ European businesses know AI is useful — they just can't figure out how to use it.
♦️ Workers are faster with AI, but the economy hasn't noticed yet.

Have a great read!

Morten

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The MiCA transition deadline hits 30 June 2026. Kaupr has mapped every approved and pending operator across Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Finland leads with five approvals. Estonia has zero despite historically hosting the most VASP operators in Europe. Norway is moving fast — two approvals in one week.

Why it matters: Operators without a licence by 30 June lose the right to serve the entire EU/EEA market. The race will reshape the competitive landscape within weeks.

Source: MiCA in the Nordics and Baltics: Who Has a Crypto Licence? — Kaupr

TÝR Markets received its full CASP licence from Norway's FSA on 18 May — the first pure crypto broker in Norway to do so. CEO Filip Berg-Nielsen: "From 1 July, 500,000 Norwegian crypto investors will only be able to trade with MiCA-authorised operators." The company claims second place in the Norwegian market with 9% market share after just nine months.

Why it matters: TÝR's approval signals Norway's licensing round is moving — but Firi, K33, NBX and Bare Bitcoin are still pending. Five weeks to the hard stop.

Source: TÝR Markets becomes the first Norwegian crypto broker with MiCA approval — Kaupr

Firi, the Nordics' largest crypto exchange with over 400,000 users, received MiCA approval on 26 May and is now authorised across all EU/EEA countries. Sweden is next. CEO Thuc Tuan Hoang: "Our ambition is for Nordic crypto investors to choose a regulated, Nordic platform they can trust." Fewer than 150 companies globally have equivalent approval.

Why it matters: Firi's approval — combined with TÝR Markets' licence — means Norway's largest crypto exchange and one of its fastest-growing newcomers are both MiCA-cleared ahead of the 1 July hard stop. The race is separating operators that will survive from those that will not.

Source: Firi cleared for European expansion with MiCA licence from Norway — Kaupr

Block's Cash App has begun rolling out USDC to 25% of its nearly 60 million users, with full access by end of week. Stablecoin market value has hit a record $322 billion — surpassing the FX reserves of 95 countries. Dorsey: "I don't like that we're going to support stablecoins but our customers want to use them."

Why it matters: When the most prominent Bitcoin maximalist in consumer fintech adds stablecoin payments, the ideological debate is over. 60 million users are about to find out what programmable dollars feel like.

Source: Block kicks off Cash App's phased stablecoin roll out to its nearly 60 million users — CoinDesk

The BIS published its final prototype report for Project Agorá — a two-year collaboration involving eight central banks and over 40 financial institutions. The prototype demonstrated atomic multi-currency settlement of cross-border payments on a near 24/7 basis, with smart contracts embedding compliance and AML requirements directly into transactions. Moving to real-value testing now.

Why it matters: The world's central bank for central banks has validated tokenised cross-border payments. For Nordic banks and fintechs, this is the direction the global system is heading.

Source: Project Agorá: exploring tokenisation of wholesale cross-border payments — BIS

Bitcoin's dominance rate is declining as USDT and USDC market share rises — the same pattern that preceded the steep crypto selloff earlier this year. Bitcoin trades around $75,800.

Why it matters: When traders park capital in stablecoins rather than Bitcoin, it is a leading indicator of risk-off sentiment — not a lagging one. The timing matters: it is happening as Treasury yields remain elevated and macro uncertainty persists.

Source: Traders once again prefer dollars over bitcoin. USDT, USDC dominance rises. — CoinDesk

Eurostat 2025 data: lack of technical expertise blocks 10.5% of mid-sized European companies from adopting AI. Data privacy concerns and legal uncertainty follow. Only 2.09% say AI tools are not useful — the barrier is implementation, not intent. Denmark and Finland lead self-critical rankings on expertise gaps despite topping overall AI adoption charts.

Why it matters: Europe is not failing on AI awareness — it is failing on execution. Skills gaps and regulatory uncertainty create a structural lag as the US and Asia accelerate deployment.

Source: Why European businesses are not using AI tools — Euronews

Workers using AI save the equivalent of one workday per week, per LSE research. But total factor productivity has barely moved. The San Francisco Fed draws a direct parallel to the early internet: massive investment preceded productivity gains by years. Robert Solow's 1987 quip — "you can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics" — is being recycled for the AI era.

Why it matters: The productivity lag is not a sign that AI is failing — it is a sign that the economy has not yet reorganised around it. The payoff comes later, and bigger. For European businesses struggling with adoption, this is both a warning and a reason for patience.

Source: Employees using AI are working faster, but the economy isn't more efficient — Fortune

B🎙 Kaupr Weekly — on your favourite platform

A new episode drops each weekend — three episodes so far. Kaupr Weekly is Morten Myrstad's short, news-oriented podcast on the week's biggest stories in crypto and fintech.

Thank you for reading Kaupr Today. If you find this briefing useful, please share it with a colleague or friend who should be following Nordic and European digital‑finance news more closely.

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Wishing you a great Thursday — and welcome back on Friday morning for the next edition of Kaupr Today.

Best regards
Morten Myrstad
Founder & Editor