Reverse solicitation

The exemption sits in Article 61 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1114, headed "Provision of crypto-asset services at the exclusive initiative of the client", whose text never uses the words reverse solicitation. Any soliciting, promotion or advertising directed at the Union cancels it, and no contract clause can put it back. For a buyer, it means an offshore platform may answer you, but it may not come looking for you.

How it works

Reverse solicitation is an exception to exactly one rule, the authorisation requirement in Article 59 of MiCA: a person shall not provide crypto-asset services within the Union unless that person is authorised as a crypto-asset service provider under Article 63, or is a credit institution, investment firm, electronic money institution or one of the other listed entities allowed to provide those services under Article 60. Article 61(1) carves out the case where a client established or situated in the Union initiates, at its own exclusive initiative, the provision of a service by a third-country firm. In that narrow case the authorisation requirement does not apply to that service, for that client, and to the relationship specifically relating to it.

Two further subparagraphs and a second paragraph then close the obvious escape routes.

• Solicitation of any kind ends it. Where the third-country firm, an entity acting on its behalf, or anyone with close links to it solicits clients or prospective clients in the Union, "regardless of the means of communication used for the solicitation, promotion or advertising in the Union", the service is not deemed to be provided on the client's own exclusive initiative.
• Paperwork cannot restore it. That rule applies "notwithstanding any contractual clause or disclaimer purporting to state otherwise", including a disclaimer stating that the service is deemed to be provided at the client's own initiative. The tickbox at signup is worth nothing.
• The exemption does not travel. Under Article 61(2), a client's own initiative does not entitle the firm to market new types of crypto-assets or new crypto-asset services to that same client. Opening an account is not consent to be sold a lending product later.

Article 61(3) instructed ESMA to publish, by 30 December 2024, guidelines specifying the situations in which a third-country firm is deemed to solicit clients in the Union, and separate guidelines on supervisory practices for detecting and preventing circumvention of the regulation. The anti-circumvention mandate sits in the same article as the exemption, which says how the legislators expected it to be used.

Why this matters when you buy bitcoin

Reverse solicitation decides whether the platform you are about to fund sits inside or outside your country's supervisory net. Article 61(1) lifts the authorisation requirement in one narrow shape: for that crypto-asset service or activity, for that client, and for the relationship specifically relating to it. Beyond that there is no authorisation in the picture at all: no file for a competent authority to examine, nothing for it to withdraw under Article 64, and no entry in the ESMA register naming the authority that granted a licence and the services it covers.

MiCA answers abuse of the exemption with publication, not with a private remedy for you. Article 110 obliges ESMA to keep a second and deliberately non-exhaustive register of entities providing crypto-asset services in violation of Article 59 or 61, carrying at least the commercial name or the website of the entity and the authority that reported it. Article 108 requires every competent authority to accept written complaints about alleged infringements of the regulation and to publish its complaints procedure on its website. Both routes start with knowing which authority is yours, and the 32 crypto-licence guides on this site name the national regulator for each covered country and link it.

The exemption also refuses to grow, and it is fragile. Article 61(2) caps the relationship at the service you went looking for, and under Article 61(1) solicitation, promotion or advertising in the Union ends the exemption regardless of the means of communication used, whether it comes from the firm, from an entity acting on its behalf, or from one with close links to it. Before you send money, the question worth asking is not whether a platform will accept you, which most will, but whether anyone supervises the arrangement when it goes wrong.

Coinbase, the Argentine peso, and a carve-out named out loud

Coinbase named the concept in its own help centre when it ended peso buying and selling of USDC in Argentina. The crypto-only markets article reads: "As of January 31, 2026, you can't buy or sell USDC using Argentine pesos (ARS) on Coinbase. All crypto-to-crypto operations and other supported crypto activity in Argentina continue under Reverse Solicitation."

Argentina is not an EU member state, so MiCA Article 61 is not the governing law there, and that is the useful part. The phrase has spread beyond the regulation that popularised it and now describes an operating posture: keep serving whoever comes to you, stop offering a local product. A fiat door closes on a stated date, the crypto-to-crypto door stays open, and the basis given for whatever remains is the customer's own approach rather than the operator's offer.

The same article spells out what such a market leaves an account. It can buy, sell and convert supported cryptocurrencies using another crypto asset, and send and receive crypto on-chain. It cannot deposit local fiat currency, cash out to a local bank account or card, or add local fiat payment methods to buy or sell directly with local currency. Coinbase says availability "depends on your country of residence, the Coinbase entity that serves you, and local regulations", and adds: "If you only see crypto options and no Add cash or Cash out options for your local currency, this is expected in a crypto-only market."

Nothing promises the arrangement will last, since the operator can narrow it further without a local licence to lose. Our Argentina guide lists Coinbase among its ranked exchanges, and a change of this kind is exactly what moves an exchange's note or its position there.

Reverse solicitation vs MiCA passporting

Reverse solicitation and MiCA passporting move a firm's service across a border by opposite mechanisms. Passporting begins from an authorisation that already exists. Under Article 65 a provider files with its home competent authority the states it is targeting, the services it will provide across the border and the date it means to start, and that authority has 10 working days to pass the file to the host states' single points of contact, to ESMA and to EBA. The licence behind that is public and revocable: Article 63(13) gives the granting authority two working days to send ESMA the register details, and under Article 64 a competent authority can withdraw the authorisation, or limit the withdrawal to one crypto-asset service, notifying ESMA and the host contact points without undue delay.

Reverse solicitation produces none of it. There is no notification, no register entry, and no supervisor holding a file on the firm. Passporting is a right the firm holds and can point to; reverse solicitation is a claim about how one customer relationship began, which has to hold up service by service, and which a single advertising campaign aimed at the Union destroys.

Reverse solicitation vs prohibited jurisdiction

A prohibited jurisdiction and a reverse-solicitation market are two different answers to the question of whether you can use a platform at all. Coinbase keeps them in separate help articles, and the gap between them is wide. Its prohibited-regions article says the company "does not permit access to its website or mobile application in any jurisdiction that is subject to the sanctions programs administered by the U.S. Treasury and other governing bodies", that attempted logins from those regions are blocked, and that an account it concludes is resident in one will be closed.

A market where activity continues under reverse solicitation is the reverse: access works, the account stays open, and only the local product has gone. Sanctions exclusion is a locked door. Reverse solicitation is a door left ajar, on the firm's insistence that you were the one who opened it.