Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) Regulation

Abstract

The MiCA Proposal is part of the ‘digital finance package’, a package of measures to further enable and support the potential of digital finance in terms of innovation and competition while mitigating the risks arising from it. Crypto-assets are one of the major applications of distributed ledger technology (DLT) in finance. Crypto-asset issuers and service providers cannot currently fully reap the benefits of the internal market, due to a lack of both legal certainty about the regulatory treatment of crypto-assets as well as the absence of a dedicated and coherent regulatory and supervisory regime at EU level. The MICA Proposal aims to lay down uniform rules regarding (i) transparency and disclosure, (ii) the issuance and admission to trading of crypto-assets, (iii) the authorisation and supervision of issuers and (iv) the consumer protection. MiCA Proposal would replace existing national frameworks applicable to crypto-assets not covered by existing EU financial services legislation by establishing a dedicated and harmonised framework at EU level.