Only nine of roughly 23 electronic money token issuers in the European Economic Area have secured both issuer approval and crypto-asset service provider authorization under MiCA, creating a split that limits most rivals to minting and redeeming tokens rather than offering custody and transfer services. Patrick Hansen, Head of EU Strategy and Policy at Circle, said the gap has left 14 issuers unable to hold their own stablecoins on behalf of clients, constraining business-to-business offerings and slowing competition for institutional flows. Circle and Société Générale-Forge have emerged as key beneficiaries because they can support a broader range of services tied to USDC and EURC, while many other issuers are still navigating MiCA Article 60 notification procedures that can take months in markets such as France and Luxembourg. Retail users of euro stablecoins are largely unaffected because they can move tokens through self-custodied wallets, but corporate clients face restrictions where issuers lack custody permissions or cannot automate payouts. Some issuers have responded by partnering with regulated third parties. Schuman Financial, for example, has integrated its EURØP stablecoin with the XRP Ledger and relies on Ripple's MiCA CASP and EMI licenses to provide legal custody and transfers across 30 European countries. Market participants expect the imbalance to persist in the near term, preserving a competitive advantage for the best-positioned issuers in attracting institutional capital.