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Revolut’s fintech expansion in Europe and globally severely limits 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 super app with 65 million users is a losing game, but Revolut’s relative neglect of crypto creates a rare, defensible opening.
- MiCA turned crypto from a risk into a reference: regulatory clarity not only unlocks Europe – it increases global trust, access to capital and converts licenses into real balance sheet value.
- Europe is perfectly priced for crypto scale: Cheaper talent, growing demand for stablecoins and returning venture capital make Europe’s crypto finance the best chance to build the next pan-regional champion.
By September 2025, Revolut reaches 65 million customers worldwide, including 12 million in the UK alone. The company also announced a firm timeline for serving 100 million customers, with the goal of reaching this milestone by mid-2027. As a result, opportunities for European fintech development are rapidly shrinking. 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 have not developed crypto services with sufficient intensity.
The latter model offers several compelling advantages. Due to certain characteristics of the European startup scene, a crypto financing project has excellent opportunities for global expansion, or at least for pan-European growth.
Regulation
The rollout of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation has given crypto projects a major boost – not because it specifically allowed or banned anything, but simply because it created clear, understandable frameworks for what a project must meet to remain compliant in Europe.
These regulations have an unusual side effect: MiCA increases trust in crypto projects beyond European borders. For example, in Latin American markets it creates an extremely positive attitude from regulators towards projects, making it a notable green flag.
The workforce and the 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 certainly 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 in their accounts and using them as a means of payment.
Financing
While fintech has attracted less and less money in recent years, the situation is now changing.
“If 2024 was defined by scarcity, then so was 2025 defined by division. The fundraising recovery has been robust: current year figures stood at around €6.3 billion in September, more than 70% of the 2024 total.”
Some of this money is flowing into crypto, as the sector becomes institutionalized through MiCA. A license significantly capitalizes a company, transforming it from an unproven concept into a clearly understood fintech company in the eyes of investors.
“Now that MiCA is fully live, we expect 2026 to be the year of Stablecoin Rails. Major European banks are already testing euro-denominated stablecoins. The ‘wild west’ of crypto is over; the industrialization of digital assets is here, and it will likely become the standard for cross-border B2B payments.”
What can be improved?
Despite being a major benefit, MiCa still hasn’t completely solved compliance issues. Current legislation and regulators are still stumbling over crypto-specific issues when it comes to how companies make and spend money in crypto form. Moreover, because we are 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 operations, we highly recommend you take a serious look at the crypto finance market. Europe offers fintech companies numerous advantages that they can leverage for global expansion.
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