Kraken Top Crypto Exchange in EU Lobbying Spending Ahead of Coinbase

Crypto exchanges spent millions lobbying the European Union in 2024, based on publicly available data, with many of the world’s largest exchanges employing the equivalent of multiple full-time lobbyists. Many firms bumped up spending 25% year over year.

According to data from corporate interest and transparency watchdogs Corporate Europe Observatory and LobbyControl, Kraken’s parent company, Payward, topped the list of spenders from the crypto industry. Under EU law, firms must register in the EU’s Transparency Register before they can lobby EU institutions and must provide information on their clients, budgets, and staff.

Payward, which operates Kraken, spent between $323,000 and $430,000 (€299,999–€399,999) on lobbying in 2024, up roughly $108,000 (€100,000) from the previous year, and had 2.75 full-time-equivalent lobbyists on its payroll. Coinbase came in second, spending between $216,000 and $323,000 (€199,999–€299,999)—another $108,000 (€100,000) rise year over year. Coinbase employed 0.7 full-time-equivalent lobbyists.

LobbyControl counts employment numbers in this way because professional lobbyists working at agencies often work for multiple clients, dedicating, say, 20% of their workweek to each one.

Bitpanda spent between $54,000 and $108,000 (€50,000–€99,999) on lobbying, the same as the prior year, and employed two full-time lobbyists. Binance, via its Binance France SAS subsidiary, spent $54,000 to $108,000 (€50,000–€99,999) in 2024, the same as the previous year, employing 0.4 full-time-equivalent lobbyists.

This data only reflects money spent on lobbying EU institutions directly, such as the European Commission—not the bloc’s individual financial regulators or governments. True spending could be much higher.

Digital banking giant Revolut, which isn’t technically a crypto exchange but provides one of the bloc’s most popular crypto trading services, spent between $323,000 and $430,000 (€300,000–€399,999) and employed 1.4 full-time-equivalent lobbyists.

The crypto industry’s EU lobbying spend, though significant, is dwarfed by that of some of the world’s largest tech firms. Meta spent more than $10.7 million (€10 million)—the most of any company—according to the group’s latest report, with U.S. big tech dominating overall spend. 

Crypto and the EU

The news comes at an interesting time for EU regulation. The Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), which gave the EU a bloc-wide set of regulations governing crypto assets for the first time, went fully into effect on December 30, 2024.

Meanwhile, the EU’s Anti-Money Laundering Authority, or AMLA, has warned member states to be particularly wary of the threat of financial crime ahead of the rollout of its new Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (AMLR) from July 1, 2027, onward.

Lawyers have told Decrypt that some firms are attempting to sidestep parts of the MiCA regulation through tactics such as confusing ownership structures or “shopping between regulators” to find the most favorable one.