Gate (Editorial Profile)
⚠︎ Risk warning: leveraged derivatives on unregulated platforms — you can lose everything you deposit. Not investment advice.
Gate (formerly Gate.io) is the interesting middle case of the offshore tier: unlike MEXC, it actually went and got an EU licence — Gate Technology Ltd, Malta, a MiCA CASP authorisation granted 29 September 2025, confirmed in Gate's own announcement and on the MFSA-derived registers. But that licence covers "exchange and custody services" — spot-type activity. It does not cover derivatives, and Gate's own June 2026 notice to EEA clients lists only exchange, order-execution, trading-platform, custody and transfer services as moving to the licensed entity. So for a European reader the headline is unchanged: no lawful Gate perps path.
The essentials
| EU entity | Gate Technology Ltd, Malta (C 89337) — MiCA CASP, MFSA, granted 2025-09-29; scope: custody, trading platform, exchange, order execution, transfers — no derivatives |
|---|---|
| Global entity | Separate agreement; its live Restricted Locations list now includes France, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Malta and Spain outright (EU users routed to the Malta entity) |
| Perps (global) | Conflicting counts even across Gate's own surfaces (450–1,700+ depending on page/date); up to 125x on BTC/USDT per Gate's own announcement |
| Fees (base) | Reported 0.02% maker / 0.05% taker at VIP 0 (consistent across sources; Gate's own fee table not machine-readable — treat as reported) |
| Funding | 8h standard, 4h on some contracts, auto-escalation to 1h in extreme volatility (Gate's own help docs) |
What changed in 2026 — correcting our own earlier sourcing
Until mid-2026, the operative Gate document was a user agreement dated February 2022 that restricted users in several EU countries to spot-only and banned Malta outright. That document is now superseded — the live agreements are dated March 2026 (EU) and later, and they implement a different architecture: the global entity blocks NL/DE/FR/AT/Malta/ES entirely, while the new Malta entity lawfully serves EU users for the MiCA-covered services. Our earlier coverage cited the 2022 document with a staleness flag; this page reflects the current papers. The practical result for perps is the same under both regimes: not available to those EU users — previously by spot-only restriction, now by entity routing to a licence that doesn't include derivatives. We found no MiFID II authorisation or application for Gate's Malta entity.
On the record
The most significant historical item is one Gate has never confirmed: an April 2018 breach of roughly $230M attributed to North Korea's Lazarus Group — documented through on-chain forensic analysis rather than any statement from Gate or a regulator naming the exchange. We state it with that evidentiary caveat attached, because it is exactly the kind of event a venue's own disclosure record should have covered. More recently, a 2026 single-account theft claim (~$1.7M) drew attention less for its size than for the ~$207M in net outflows that followed — a reminder of how fast confidence moves on offshore venues. On the positive side of the ledger, the Malta licence is real and verifiable — a materially better posture than unlicensed peers.
Bottom line for a European reader
Gate's EU story is half-finished: licensed for spot, silent on derivatives. If Gate Technology Ltd ever files for a MiFID authorisation, it would join the regulated track — we'll update this page. Until then, EU-lawful perps live at OKX, Kraken, Bitstamp, Coinbase and One Trading.