Blockchain for Europe
Blockchain for Europe is a non-profit trade association in Brussels that represents global and regional companies of the blockchain industry at the level of the European Union. Its members are firms whose business models rest on distributed ledger technology, from crypto exchanges and stablecoin issuers to blockchain foundations and analytics providers. The association supports their dialogue with European decision-makers and supervisors.
Blockchain for Europe works with policymakers, academics and its member companies on a European regulatory framework that supports innovation based on blockchain. It writes position papers on the crypto-asset rules of the EU, on stablecoins and on decentralized finance, and it explains the technology to officials at events and webinars. Its stated aim is a Europe that leads in Web3 and protects consumers while entrepreneurs can compete.
Members and partners
Blockchain for Europe lists 40 member companies, among them the exchanges Coinbase, Kraken, Binance, OKX and Bitpanda and the stablecoin issuers Circle and Paxos. Blockchain foundations such as the Stellar Foundation and the Web3 Foundation belong to it, as do the analytics and compliance firms Chainalysis, TRM Labs, Notabene and Sumsub. Further members include Fireblocks, Ripple and the trading firm Flow Traders.
Membership is agreed case by case, and each member decides which policy files, working groups and updates it wants to follow. Members join a regular call on regulatory developments and can speak at the annual summit and at workshops with policymakers. The 26 partner organizations include CryptoUK, the Digital Pound Foundation and the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, and the event partners include the European Blockchain Convention and Paris Blockchain Week.
Annual summit in Brussels
The Blockchain for Europe Summit is the yearly two-day conference of the association in Brussels and calls itself the leading policy-focused blockchain summit in the city. It brings together representatives of the digital and financial sectors with policymakers, regulators, supervisors and academics. The panels deal with blockchain, digital assets, tokenization and the regulation of the industry.
Guests come from Europe and from markets such as the United States, Japan, Hong Kong and India. The association streams the debates live and publishes recordings of past panels, and between two summits it holds webinars on single policy files.
Board, secretariat and advisory council
Roeland Van Der Stappen of Coinbase chairs the board, which the members elect every two years and which takes the executive decisions. The other board members are Lee Schneider of Ava Labs, Matthias Bauer-Langgartner of Chainalysis, Agata Ferreira of the Institute of Free Technology and Beata Sivak of Kraken.
Robert Kopitsch is Secretary General and has led the association in this role since its foundation in 2018. The secretariat runs the daily work with Tommaso Astazi as Policy Director and Erwin Voloder as Director of Research and Strategy. An advisory council of former officials and academics supports the association, among them Miguel Fernández Ordóñez, former Governor of the Banco de España, and Kevin Werbach of the Wharton School.
Upcoming fintech and finance events in Belgium
Positions on MiCA, stablecoins and DeFi
Blockchain for Europe argues for harmonized and transparent rules for crypto-assets under MiCA and for a clear line between these rules and securities regulation. On stablecoins it wants the rules for e-money tokens to match the existing e-money framework, and in 2026 it published a joint report on reforming MiCA for euro stablecoins. On decentralized finance, the association explains to policymakers why rules written for financial intermediaries do not fit decentralized systems.
Further topics are anti-money laundering rules for self-hosted wallets, the reporting and taxation of crypto-assets, the tokenization of real-world assets and the data protection rules for blockchains. In September 2026 the association submitted a consultation response on MiCA, and a policy paper of the same year covers use cases of blockchain outside finance.
History since 2018
Blockchain for Europe was officially launched in November 2018 at the Blockchain for Europe Summit in the European Parliament. The founding members included EMURGO, Fetch.AI, NEM and Ripple, which wanted to give the blockchain industry one coordinated voice at the European level. The consultancy APCO Worldwide helped to set up the association and ran its secretariat, and the association is listed in the EU Transparency Register under the number 910251734425-24.
Blockchain for Europe and Finance Loop
Banks and asset managers in Germany apply the same EU rules that Blockchain for Europe debates in Brussels, from MiCA and the travel rule to the treatment of stablecoins. Finance Loop discusses these rules at its events and in its Risk & Compliance track.
Finance Loop is a professional network and has the goal of driving the institutional use of emerging technologies in finance, such as AI, tokenization, stablecoins, and DeFi. Finance Loop helps its members build skills and personal networks in these fields: Investment & Digital Assets, Payments & Digital Money, Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty, and Risk & Compliance.