TÝR Markets - first Norwegian crypto-native MiCA CASP

TÝR Markets - how a 25-year Oslo exchange veteran became Norway's first crypto-native MiCA exchange

On 18 May 2026, the Norwegian Financial Supervisory Authority (Finanstilsynet) issued a historic authorisation - Týr Markets AS became the first crypto-native exchange in Norway with a full MiCA Article 63 CASP licence. It is the biggest MiCA event in the Nordics so far this year, and it signals that the European Union's new crypto-asset regulation now operates in practice across the NorriWire region (the Baltics and the Nordics) too.

This is the story of a man who spent 25 years trading on the Oslo Stock Exchange, of seven years of technology development, and of how the parent company Volven AS built one of the first European crypto exchanges to meet the new MiCA standards in full.

Why 18 May 2026 is a meaningful date

To understand why the TÝR Markets authorisation matters, you need context on Europe's crypto regulation.

The European Union adopted MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets) in 2023 - historically the first comprehensive crypto-asset regulation in the world. Norway, while not an EU member, is part of the European Economic Area (EEA), and MiCA was incorporated into the EEA agreement in 2025. That means since 1 July 2025, any crypto service provider wanting to operate in Norway must either hold a MiCA authorisation or be in transitional status.

Before 2026, Norway had no MiCA-authorised crypto-native exchanges. There were two notable events:

• 2 February 2026: AK Jensen Norway AS received the very first MiCA authorisation in Norway - but it was an Article 60(3) attachment, designed for traditional MiFID/AIFM-regulated brokers (AK Jensen is a 31-year-old UK FCA AIFM firm that added crypto to its product line).
• 18 May 2026: TÝR Markets became the first Norwegian crypto-native company to receive a full Article 63 CASP licence.

The distinction matters. An Article 60 attachment is a faster path for existing financial firms with MiFID II or AIFM licences. Article 63 is the full CASP licensing process - longer, more expensive, and demanding crypto-specific capital and controls. TÝR Markets is the first crypto exchange in Norway to have gone through this full process.

That is a decisive step in market maturity.

Filip Berg-Nielsen - the man behind TÝR Markets

To understand what TÝR Markets is built on, you need to meet its founder and CEO Filip Berg-Nielsen.

Filip is an Oslo-based entrepreneur with more than 25 years in financial markets. His career started in the mid-1990s, when he worked as a floor broker on the Oslo Stock Exchange - trading equities and derivatives in the pre-computer era, when trading happened physically on the exchange floor.

He soon moved to prop trading (proprietary capital trading). Filip was a market maker at two important Norwegian financial houses:

• Carnegie (a Scandinavian investment bank)
• Elcon Securities - later transformed into First Securities, where Filip was a co-founder. There he set up the trading department, including risk management and back-office routines.

In the 2000s Filip became one of Norway's earliest adopters of DMA (Direct Market Access) trading - the technology that lets traders connect to exchanges directly without intermediaries.

In the 2010s he moved into cross-market HFT (High-Frequency Trading) with co-located engines - a technically demanding approach where trading systems sit physically next to exchange servers to push latency down to microseconds.

For more than a decade, Filip's businesses held above 5 % market share on the Oslo Stock Exchange - a meaningful number in a professional market maker's career.

In 2017 Filip decided to bring his quantitative trading experience to the crypto market. That was the start of the Volven story.

Volven AS - a seven-year technology journey

Volven AS is an Oslo-based company that Filip Berg-Nielsen founded in 2017. Its core mission was to build an institutional crypto trading terminal - on par with the professional equity trading platforms used by hedge funds and investment banks.

Filip's pitch was simple: "Trading terminals haven't changed in the last 25 years. We have decided to change that."

Volven's development timeline:

• 2017: First test trade
• 2018: First developer joined the team
• 2019: First market-making strategies, 100,000 orders placed
• 2020: Monolith Backend, Market Data Engine V1, Trading Engine V1, Strategy Engine V1
• 2021: Gen 2 Terminal, 4 million orders, 40 employees, $7 million raised, Desktop Terminal V2 (C++), a fully scalable back-end architecture
• 2022: 1 million orders, $2 million raised, 14 employees, Machine Learning team
• 2023: $2 billion in trading volume, iOS app, first institutional client, on track for 50 million orders

Volven now employs 35 dedicated specialists. The technology stack is impressive:

• C++ with the QT framework - the same framework used by military-grade applications and by carmakers like Tesla and Mercedes
• AWS cloud infrastructure
• TradingView chart integration

Volven's CTO is Grzegorz Tekiela - a Polish-born engineer with a Master's in Computer Science from the Silesian University of Technology, who started at a Norwegian algorithmic trading firm in 2011. Since May 2017 all his time has gone into building the Volven platform.

Volven's initial business was B2B SaaS - a trading platform for institutional clients (mutual funds, market makers, OTC counters, treasury companies). But in 2024 Filip decided to launch a retail product that would run on the same institutional technology.

That product became TÝR Markets.

The birth of TÝR Markets - a retail product with institutional DNA

The name "TÝR" comes from Norse mythology - the god of war, justice and trade in the Viking age. The symbolism is deliberate: TÝR Markets positions itself as a fair (transparent-priced) trading venue for Norwegian retail clients.

TÝR Markets' core value proposition is the "zero spread" model. Unlike standard retail exchanges that hide their margin inside the spread, TÝR Markets offers:

• Zero spread on orders up to NOK 100,000 (~ EUR 9,200)
• Mid-price execution - clients receive the market mid-price, not the bid or ask side
• For larger orders - the lowest spread on the market
• A fee of 0.10 % to 0.35 % depending on client volume

For comparison: Norway's leading crypto exchange Firi charges a flat 0.7 % fee, Coinmotion (Finland) sits at 0.99 %, and Safello (Sweden) at 0.75-1.49 %. TÝR Markets is among the lowest fees on the entire Nordic market.

How does that work? TÝR Markets connects clients directly to global exchanges - OKX, Bybit and Crypto.com - which together account for about 85 % of global crypto trading volume. Pricing is sourced automatically against that liquidity, and TÝR Markets takes the risk on its own balance sheet. The client gets the market price, and TÝR Markets earns a commission.

Direct NOK trading. Most crypto exchanges in Norway convert NOK to USD or EUR before trading, which adds 0.5-1.5 % in conversion costs. TÝR Markets trades directly in NOK against BTC, ETH and other popular cryptocurrencies, eliminating those costs.

What Finanstilsynet actually authorised (MiCA Article 63 in detail)

The Finanstilsynet press release (2026-05-22) granted TÝR Markets authorisation for the following MiCA Article 63 services:

• (a) Custody and administration - holding crypto-assets on behalf of clients
• (c) Exchange against fiat - NOK ↔ BTC, ETH and other crypto-assets
• (d) Exchange between crypto-assets - BTC ↔ ETH, ETH ↔ SOL, etc.
• (j) Transfer services - on-chain transfers between addresses

What is not authorised: portfolio management (b), order execution (f), placing (g), advice (h), reception and transmission of orders (e).

In practice that means TÝR Markets is a classic exchange + custody service - without active portfolio management, robo-advisor or brokerage functionality.

What are the MiCA Article 63 requirements?

A full CASP licence is not quick to obtain. It requires:

• A minimum regulatory capital (EUR 50,000 to 150,000 depending on the service combination)
• Client fund segregation (client funds held separately from the firm's own funds)
• Strict AML/CFT (Anti-Money Laundering / Counter-Terrorism Financing) compliance controls
• Internal controls and risk management
• Operational and cyber-security requirements
• Customer complaint procedures
• A 40-business-day assessment period (once Finanstilsynet has confirmed the application is complete)

TÝR Markets filed its application in July 2025 - one of the first in Norway. The authorisation was granted 10 months later, on 18 May 2026. That is a relatively fast cycle and indicates a high level of preparation in the application.

Security architecture

TÝR Markets uses institutional-grade security solutions:

Fireblocks MPC custody. Client crypto-assets are held via Fireblocks - one of the world's most respected institutional custody platforms. It is used by BlackRock, BNY Mellon, Revolut and Goldman Sachs digital assets. MPC (multi-party computation) signing means no single person can access client funds - signing requires multiple independent custodians.

Fiat segregation via ESPOS Norge AS. Client NOK funds are held in Norwegian banks via partner ESPOS Norge AS - separately from TÝR Markets' own funds. That meets MiCA's requirements on client fund segregation.

No history of incidents. TÝR Markets has no recorded security incidents, hacks or losses of client funds.

Strategic partnerships

Although TÝR Markets is a relatively new platform (a 2024 launch), it has already secured two important partnerships with the Norwegian financial industry.

StackXMe (15 October 2025)

StackXMe is a Norwegian investment app that originally offered mutual funds and stocks. CEO Madeleine Bjørnestad Røed announced that StackXMe would choose TÝR Markets as its back-end crypto service provider, replacing its previous partner K33.

The reason? "K33 could not offer competitive pricing and could not provide a solution where K33 handled customers and funds through the StackXMe app," said Bjørnestad Røed. StackXMe now operates as an order intermediary - much as it does with mutual funds.

The partnership is scheduled to go live in the first quarter of 2026. It will make StackXMe the first Norwegian investment app to combine fund units, stocks and crypto trading in one solution.

Arctic Securities (6 January 2026)

Arctic Securities is a significant Norwegian investment bank with offices in 12 countries - from Oslo to Shanghai and Rio de Janeiro. In January 2026 Arctic Securities announced a collaboration with TÝR Markets that gives Arctic clients access to bitcoin and selected digital-asset trading.

"An increasing number of our clients are showing interest in digital assets and are seeking exposure to new investment products," said Peder Friis, Head of Equity Sales & Trading at Arctic Securities. "Through this collaboration, we are meeting our clients' interests and providing access to this fast-growing market."

Arctic operates a referral model - clients who want to trade crypto are referred to TÝR Markets, and Arctic earns a referral fee. Arctic does not need to build its own crypto infrastructure, and TÝR Markets gets access to a strong client portfolio.

Sven Gustav Bakken, Head of Equities and Corporate Finance at Arctic Securities, is also actually a board member of Volven AS - underlining the deep relationship between the two firms.

Volven's board and related people

The Volven AS board includes several seasoned veterans of the Norwegian financial industry:

• Filip Berg-Nielsen - Volven CEO, founder
• Klaus Henrik Wiese-Hansen - Partner at Schjødt Lawfirm, an attorney admitted to the Norwegian Supreme Court, specialising in financial services, insurance, capital markets and M&A. Schjødt is one of Norway's leading law firms and published the early legal analysis of Norway's MiCA implementation.
• Sven Gustav Bakken - Head of Equities and Corporate Finance at Arctic Securities (since 1 April 2023). Previously Investment Director at the Blystad group, Managing Director for Capital Markets at DNB Markets (2015-2021), and Senior Partner Equity Sales at Pareto Securities.
• Kristian Ikast - CEO of Codelab Capital (formerly PatientSky Group). Two decades of international executive experience, leadership exposure in nearly 50 countries, and experience with IPOs, M&A and restructurings.

Technical team:

• Grzegorz Tekiela - Volven CTO, Master's in Computer Science (Silesian University of Technology), 10+ years of software development experience, working in algorithmic trading since 2011.

Financials and customer base

Volven (the TÝR Markets parent) has raised approximately USD 9 million in total funding across several rounds (USD 2 million in 2022, USD 7 million in 2021). The funding is from private Nordic backers - the company is not publicly listed.

Trading volume (Volven platforms): USD 2 billion of volume in 2023, on track for 50 million orders.

Team size: 35-40 employees.

Customer base: Specific retail customer numbers for TÝR Markets are not publicly disclosed, but through the StackXMe and Arctic Securities partnerships TÝR Markets is potentially exposed to tens of thousands of new Norwegian clients during 2026. For comparison: Firi has 250,000-400,000 users across Norway and Denmark.

Future plans

The main publicly known future plans:

1. EU passport activation. A MiCA Article 63 licence allows operation in all 30 EEA countries via the EU passport mechanism. TÝR Markets has not yet activated this option - it is focused on the Norwegian market. But this is a direct future option for expansion into Sweden, Denmark, Finland and potentially the Baltics.

2. Nordic expansion. The StackXMe announcement mentioned that "further expansion to other Nordic countries is already on the road map." That points to near-term plans for 2026-2027.

3. Volven Terminal retail product. Volven already offers a professional trading terminal for institutional clients. An iOS app is live. It is possible to expect these products to be more tightly integrated with the retail TÝR Markets platform.

4. Additional Article 63 services. Today TÝR Markets is authorised for a/c/d/j (custody, fiat↔crypto, crypto↔crypto, transfers). In future the licence could be extended to portfolio management (b) or order reception (e) if the business model demands it.

Competition in Norway's crypto market in 2026

TÝR Markets is the only Norwegian crypto-native firm with a full CASP licence. That is a meaningful competitive advantage in 2026.

What it means for the NorriWire region (Baltics + Nordics)

The TÝR Markets MiCA authorisation has direct implications across several areas:

1. Norway's crypto market maturity. A first crypto-native MiCA authorisation in Norway means the regulator has now demonstrated the ability to issue full CASP licences. That accelerates the processing of other applications - Firi (still in transition), NBX and others are waiting for their decisions before the transitional period ends on 30 June 2026.

2. For Baltic and Nordic clients. TÝR Markets does not currently serve the Baltics, Finland, Sweden or Denmark actively. The EU passport is a technical option but has not been activated. For clients in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland, the better alternatives remain Coinmotion, Bitvavo, Safello and Bittimaatti.

3. Pricing pressure on other exchanges. TÝR Markets' 0.10-0.35 % fees are considerably lower than competitors'. That puts pressure on Firi, NBX and others to revisit their pricing to stay competitive.

4. Institutional-grade infrastructure for the retail market. Volven's technology is a seven-year institutional product. For retail clients that means a professional experience with fast execution and deep liquidity.

5. A MiCA precedent. TÝR Markets' application path (July 2025 -> May 2026, ~10 months) can serve as a template for other Norwegian and Nordic crypto firms planning to file their own Article 63 applications.

Limits - what is still to be seen

While TÝR Markets is a meaningful achievement, several aspects remain open:

1. Real retail adoption. How many Norwegian clients actually move to TÝR Markets remains to be seen. Firi has 250,000-400,000 customers and strong BankID/Vipps integration - TÝR Markets will need to prove in its first year that the low-fee value proposition outweighs Firi's local-integration advantages.

2. StackXMe and Arctic Securities partnership execution. The Q1 2026 launch with StackXMe is critical - whether the integration will work technically and how well it will attract clients.

3. EU passport plans. Whether and when TÝR Markets will actively expand into other EEA countries.

4. Broader coin range. TÝR Markets currently focuses on top crypto-assets. Will the platform broaden its altcoin offering?

5. Mobile app. The platform is currently web-based. Volven has already built an iOS app for institutional clients - it would be reasonable to expect this to be adapted for retail TÝR Markets clients.

Bottom line - why this is the biggest Nordic crypto event of the year

The Finanstilsynet decision on 18 May 2026 is not just another regulatory notice. It is a historic event for several reasons:

• The first Norwegian crypto-native CASP - proof that a full Article 63 licence in Norway is achievable in practice
• Filip Berg-Nielsen, a 25+ year Oslo Stock Exchange veteran - one of Norway's leading market makers moving his expertise into crypto
• Volven's seven-year institutional technology - professional-grade platform now accessible to retail clients
• Strategic partnerships with StackXMe and Arctic Securities - giving TÝR Markets access to Norway's traditional financial industry
• The lowest fees in the Nordic market (0.10-0.35 %) - pricing pressure on competitors
• Fireblocks MPC custody - institutional-grade security
• Direct NOK trading - elimination of conversion costs
• EU passport potential - the technical option to expand across the EEA

For Norwegian retail clients, TÝR Markets is a serious new alternative to Firi and NBX with lower fees and more professional trading technology. For other NorriWire region clients (the Baltics, Finland, Sweden) it is not yet directly available, but the EU passport option and Nordic expansion plans make it an interesting future option.

Norriwire will continue to follow TÝR Markets' development, the rollout of the StackXMe and Arctic Securities partnerships, and any EU passport activation.

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Article prepared 28 May 2026. Sources: Finanstilsynet press release on the Týr Markets CASP licence, Týr Markets official site, Volven AS About Us, Kaupr.io on the StackXMe + TÝR Markets partnership, Arctic Securities press release on the collaboration with TÝR Markets, Kaupr.io on the Arctic Securities collaboration, Finanstilsynet Virksomhetsregisteret for Týr Markets AS (id=243208). This is not investment advice.