KuCoin has appointed former London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) executive Sabina Liu to lead its European business, tasking her with steering the exchange’s Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA) expansion from Vienna after securing a crypto asset service provider license in Austria.
Liu, who will serve as managing director of KuCoin EU, previously ran KuCoin’s institutional business and also spent more than a decade at the LSEG working with global investment banks and cross-border trading clients, according to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph.
MiCA “guardrails” over growth at all costs
Liu told Cointelegraph that securing a MiCA license was a “major milestone” that gave KuCoin a unified regulatory framework to serve a region with mature and diverse finance, increasing crypto use and “significant room” for further adoption across stablecoins, payments and wealth products.
KuCoin EU appoints Sabina Liu as managing director. Source: KuCoin
Rather than treating MiCA’s stricter capital, reporting and governance rules as a drag on margins, Liu argued that they provide “guardrails” to support long-term growth, adding that KuCoin does not see compliance as a trade-off against profitability but as the basis for sustainable business and consumer protection.
In practice, she says KuCoin EU’s competitive strategy positions the platform as a regulated alternative in a market where larger exchanges already command volumes.
“Our objective is to offer users greater choice through differentiated services and a clear compliance-first positioning,” she said.
Related: Binance applies for MiCA license in Greece as EU deadlines loom
Compliance after US criminal case
The new appointment comes less than a year after KuCoin’s parent, Peken Global Limited, pleaded guilty in a US criminal case to operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and related anti-money laundering (AML) failures, agreeing to forfeit $184.5 million, pay a $112.9 million fine and exit the US market for two years.
Liu characterized that settlement as a turning point that reflected the “historical context of the crypto industry’s early development,” and “the need for clear regulation and compliance,” saying that KuCoin EU has embedded “high compliance standards from the start” and maintains regular dialogue with European regulators.
From altcoin exchange to MiCA rails
MiCA also means KuCoin has recalibrated a listing strategy that previously relied on a long tail of altcoins and early-stage tokens.
Liu said that KuCoin EU remained “committed to supporting the pioneers of the Web3 ecosystem,” but only within the MiCA rulebook, using its own listing procedures and risk assessments to balance innovation with regulatory expectations.
Her appointment also ties in with KuCoin’s push to turn its MiCA authorization into consumer-facing use cases, including a deal to become music festival Tomorrowland Winter and Tomorrowland Belgium’s exclusive crypto exchange and payments partner from 2026 to 2028, using its European license to support compliant crypto payments at the festivals.
Liu cast that partnership as a way to test regulated crypto rails in a mainstream setting rather than a pure marketing play, saying the goal was to integrate “compliant crypto into real-world experiences” so digital assets function as trusted financial infrastructure behind the scenes.
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