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This week
Surprised to receive another Onchain Growth just a few days after the last one? The news in the industry is already picking up, and we have decided that Tuesday morning is our weekly distribution day from now on.
Two of the Nordics' best-known crypto exchanges have put numbers on the table. Safello reported its second quarter on Friday; Firi's 2025 accounts became known on Monday. Both point at the licence — Safello as the position it now holds, Firi as what made last year expensive.
Further down in this issue: events worth your time this autumn, from Helsinki to Riga, and new pieces from Onchain Build.
Morten Founder & Editor, Kaupr
MiCA approved. But falling sales.
Different periods, not directly comparable — Safello's second quarter of 2026 and Firi's full year 2025. Two Nordic exchanges with MiCA licences, both reporting falling figures.
Safello down 33 percent — Schuil: We hold all the trump cards
The Swedish crypto broker presented its second-quarter figures on Friday 7 August. Revenue fell by a third to 87.6 million Swedish kronor, and the loss more than tripled to 7.3 million. In the interim report, CEO Frank Schuil strikes a confident tone: with every Swedish competitor refused a MiCA licence and Binance withdrawing from Europe, he writes that Safello holds all the trump cards to win the market.
The decline starts with the customers. Around 13,000 were active in the quarter, against 18,700 a year earlier, and the inflow of new ones was more than halved. Fewer customers meant fewer trades, and that feeds straight into the top line — the report explains the fall in revenue primarily by lower order volume.
Firi: operating profit down 80 percent, and the licence is the reason
Firi's operating profit for 2025 fell by around 80 percent, to 25.3 million Norwegian kroner from 131.7 million the year before. Revenue was down too, and costs up.
Thuc Hoang points at the MiCA certification as the driver behind the costs, and does not hedge on whether it was worth it: the licence is a position every crypto provider has to hold, and simply a requirement to operate. He notes that few others have one yet, and that most of those who do are banks.
The board's report expects operations to stay more expensive, with ongoing investment in compliance and reporting. Hoang's answer is efficiency rather than further investment — the company is back in an optimisation phase, adding over a hundred new customers a day. And it is in talks with a bank about a possible partnership. He will not say which, only that it is not a small one.
Read on E24 → In Norwegian
Bitcoin on the balance sheet
H100 triples its holdings
H100 has completed the acquisition of Geir Harald Hansen's companies, including Moonshot AS, bringing around 2,455 bitcoin onto its balance sheet. The holding goes from 1,051 to 3,506.
The deal was done at 1.0x mNAV and paid for in new shares, which means the sellers become shareholders rather than being paid out. Dilution is around 70 percent, and satoshis per share still rise by roughly 5 percent. Hansen has a twelve-month lock-up.
The company calls it the largest M&A transaction in European listed bitcoin, and the first completed bitcoin-for-bitcoin transaction in public markets.
Sander Andersen has spent the summer making the same argument: bear markets are for those who transact. He compares it to dry bulk in 2016 and Fredriksen's acquisitions — M&A as strategy rather than exception. Project Svalbard is a 21-point plan to grow the holding tenfold.
Industry notes
Nordic Blockchain Association files a complaint over Denmark's MiCA process — The association has taken the Danish FSA to the Parliamentary Ombudsman over its handling of MiCA applications. Twenty-five Danish companies applied in December 2024 and met delays and, in the association's account, insufficient communication. Its stated aim is to improve the process rather than revisit it. Covered by FinansWatch.
Read on Finanswatch → In Danish
Inventi becomes the first Swift Business Connect provider in the Baltics — The Lithuanian payments infrastructure company now offers banks and licensed financial institutions access to SEPA, TARGET and Swift through a single integration. Not onchain, but the layer onchain payments have to connect to.
Read more at Inventi→
BTC AB has acquired 1 bitcoin — B Treasury Capital bought one bitcoin at 64,435 dollars, bringing its holding to around 174. The company continues its steady accumulation, in line with its aim of increasing bitcoin per share over time.
Few bitcoin customers at the tax free shop — Oslo Airport's tax free shop has accepted bitcoin for click-and-collect orders for around six months, and one or two customers a month use it. Travel Retail Norway's deputy CEO Haakon Dagestad says the ambition was to create a stir in the bitcoin community and put Norway on the map, and that it turned out smaller than expected — but useful as experience for when foreign passengers want to pay that way. Payment is locked to the krone rate at purchase and converted immediately. Fewer than 40 places in Norway accept bitcoin directly.
Read on E24 → In Norwegian
Events worth your time
FirstBlock-athon Hack Day — Stockholm, 7 September. Details →
AI x Blockchain Summit — KTH Arenan, Stockholm, 11 September. Details →
European Blockchain Convention — Barcelona, 16–17 September. Twelfth edition, over 6,000 attendees. We have been, and it is where a lot of Nordic dealmaking happens off the main stage. Details →
BTCHEL — Helsinki, 25–26 September. The only bitcoin conference dedicated to the Nordics. Independent and bootstrapped, over 1,000 attendees last year. We have been. Details →
UN:BLOCK Fintech Forum — Riga, 15 October. Money and payments is one of seven tracks: digital money in the EU, the checkout of the future, and PSD3. Details →
Onchain Build
MiCA reaches game studios Triolith Games has built an internal tool to check MiCA compliance for game studios, and founder Magnus Söderberg is offering free audits to a handful of them. The tool is his; the point is the premise. Game studios issuing tokens are inside the scope of a regulation written for financial services, and someone has had to build the thing that tells them where they stand. Magnus Söderberg on LinkedIn →
A full day on AI, blockchain and what gets built with them AI Institutet is hosting a full-day summit at KTH Arenan on 11 September, with KTH's FinTech & Blockchain Research Group and FirstBlock, as part of Nordic Tech Week. Research and governance in the morning, deterministic AI and the FirstBlock-athon showcase in the afternoon. Read on Onchain Build →
Explore Onchain by Kaupr
Thanks for reading the third edition of Onchain by Kaupr
We're here to follow the industry and community driving onchain finance forward across the Nordics and Baltics — and we're just getting started.
Morten
Founder & Editor, Kaupr
