Issuers of various digital tokens and “stablecoins” are among those covered by the European Union’s new regulation on markets in crypto-assets (MiCA). As the final step in the legislative process, the rules were adopted by the European Council on 16 May.
With MiCA, the EU tries to balance openness to innovation against the risks involved for investors, and seeks to do so with a harmonized Europe-wide framework rather than fragmented between member states. The regulation and backgrounders to it can be found through this EU web page.
According to the Council, MiCA will increasing transparency for investors and put in place “a comprehensive framework for issuers and service providers including compliance with the anti-money laundering rules”. It will cover issuers of utility tokens, asset referenced tokens and stablecoins, as well as service providers such as trading venues and the wallets for crypto-assets.
The regulation on markets in crypto-assets is one element of the EU’s broader digital finance package, which also features a digital finance strategy, a Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), and a pilot regime for wholesale use of distributed ledger technology.