Damoon Technology (Europe) AG, trading as Paymonade, has been granted a Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) licence by Liechtenstein's Financial Market Authority. The approval comes just weeks after the 1 July 2026 deadline for the transitional period, which saw the number of fully authorised firms in the European Economic Area drop from over 3,000 to just 280. Paymonade, a fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-fiat on-ramp and off-ramp infrastructure provider, now joins that exclusive club.
What the MiCA numbers mean
The 280 figure is a steep comedown from the estimated 3,000-plus firms that were previously registered under national regimes. Only a small fraction of the world's 100 largest crypto exchanges by trading volume currently hold MiCA authorisation. That leaves a lot of big players still operating under transitional permissions or outside the framework entirely. For infrastructure providers like Paymonade, the licence is a ticket to serve payment providers, fintechs, and exchanges across the entire EEA without having to navigate 27 separate national rules.
Paymonade's growth targets
The company says it intends to double its European headcount over the next 12 months. It's also targeting an annualised transaction volume of CHF 6 billion by mid-2027. As of the first half of 2026, that run-rate stood at US$1.8 billion. That's a roughly threefold increase in two years. The firm didn't say how much of that growth it expects to come from the new licence versus existing business, but the timing suggests the MiCA stamp will be central to the push.
The man behind the company
Paymonade is founded and led by Calvin Cheng, a Singapore citizen and former Nominated Member of the Singapore Parliament. He also serves as Honorary Consul of the Republic of Serbia to Singapore. Cheng has a track record in highly regulated fintech: he owns a Swiss digital asset firm admitted to VQF, a FINMA-recognised self-regulatory organisation, and is a founding shareholder of Longbridge Securities. That background likely helped in navigating Liechtenstein's FMA approval process.
What comes next
With the licence in hand, Paymonade can now market its services to any EEA-based payment firm or exchange that needs compliant on- and off-ramp infrastructure. The company hasn't disclosed which clients it's already signed or which markets it will prioritise first. But with the headcount expansion already planned, the next few quarters should show whether the MiCA badge translates into real volume growth.
