MiCA under Review: What the European Commission's Targeted Consultation Means for the Crypto Industry
The European Commission has launched two parallel consultations on the functioning of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA): one public consultation open to all kinds of stakeholders, and one targeted consultation aimed at getting feedback from industry representatives and public authorities. With a deadline of 31 August 2026, the consultation invites stakeholders across the crypto and financial services industry to weigh in on whether MiCA, which only became applicable in December 2024 (and where transitional periods only end this June) is already in need of recalibration. The targeted consultation in particular, is ambitious in scope, spanning 86 questions across four major thematic blocks, and signals that the Commission is prepared to consider significant changes to the EU's crypto regulatory architecture.
This post breaks down the Commission's objectives, the structure of the targeted consultation, and the most noteworthy questions stakeholders should be paying attention to.
Why is the Commission reviewing MiCA already?
MiCA (more on that here), was designed to provide a harmonised EU framework for crypto-assets, setting rules for issuers and service providers while fostering responsible innovation. But the crypto landscape has evolved rapidly since MiCA was drafted. Traditional financial institutions are moving into the crypto and tokenised assets space, DeFi has grown significantly, new asset types have emerged, and other jurisdictions have adopted their own frameworks, some more permissive than the EU's.
The consultation serves multiple purposes simultaneously. It fulfils the Commission's legal mandates under Articles 140 and 142 of MiCA to report on the regulation's application and on developments not originally covered. But it also reflects a broader policy ambition: to ensure that MiCA keeps pace with market evolution and that the EU remains internationally competitive. Notably, the Commission explicitly frames this within its simplification agenda, asking whether “administrative or other burdens emanating from MiCA and its implementation measures can be simplified, reduced or dispensed with.”
The Commission also reaffirms its commitment to technology neutrality — regulation should not push market participants towards any particular technology.
How Is the Consultation Structured?
The document is organised into four parts, each targeting a distinct layer of the MiCA framework:
Part 1 — Scope and definitions (Title II crypto-assets) covers the fundamental question of what MiCA regulates: the classification of crypto-assets versus financial instruments, the white paper disclosure regime, marketing rules, and the notification-based supervisory model.
Part 2 — ARTs and EMTs (Titles III and IV) is the most extensive section. It addresses the future role of stablecoins, prudential and capital requirements, liquidity and reserve rules, the criteria for classifying tokens as "significant," the interest payment prohibition, redemption rights, financial stability safeguards, and the complex topic of global stablecoins and multi-issuance models.
Part 3 — CASPs (Titles V and VI) examines the adequacy of the crypto-asset service provider framework, including the service catalogue, prudential requirements, multi-function groups, reporting obligations, environmental disclosures, and the interplay with DORA and the revised Payment Services Directive.
Part 4 — Beyond MiCA's current scope ventures into territory that MiCA deliberately left unregulated or that developed in the meantime: DeFi, staking, lending and borrowing, NFTs, prediction markets, perpetual futures, tokenised deposits, and the private law treatment of tokens.
The Key Questions Stakeholders Should Watch
The Boundary Between MiCA and MiFID
The consultation opens with a foundational question: should crypto-assets that qualify as financial instruments continue to be governed by sectoral legislation (MiFID, MiFIR, MAR, Prospectus Regulation), or should all DLT-recorded assets fall under MiCA? This is not merely a technical classification issue — the answer will determine which regulatory regime govern rapidly growing markets in tokenised securities and hybrid instruments.
The Commission also asks which asset categories remain most difficult to classify in practice, flagging “hybrid tokens, wrapped assets, tokenised fund interests, tokenised money-market instruments, governance tokens, synthetic exposures, or assets marketed as NFTs but issued in series.”
The Future of Stablecoins
Stablecoins receive by far the most detailed treatment. The Commission asks stakeholders to assess, on a forward-looking 5–10 years horizon, what role stablecoins will play in the EU: mainstream payment instrument, cross-border complement, core infrastructure layer for tokenised markets, or a transitional product eventually displaced by CBDCs?
The practical utility of stablecoins is probed across a comprehensive list of use cases — from international remittances and retail payments to settlement of tokenised securities, corporate treasury management, and DeFi applications.
A particularly striking data point frames the discussion: no ARTs have been licensed in the EU under MiCA to date. The Commission asks directly whether this reflects low market interest or whether the licensing and regulatory requirements are themselves the barrier.
Interest, Reserves, and Redemption
MiCA currently prohibits issuers, offerors, and CASPs from granting interest or any interest-equivalent remuneration on stablecoins. The consultation asks whether this prohibition should be modified — a question with significant implications for the competitiveness of EU-issued stablecoins against yield-bearing alternatives available elsewhere.
On reserves, the Commission invites views on whether the liquidity and reserve regime for ARTs should be relaxed, maintained, or tightened, covering reserve maintenance obligations, the mandated minimum deposit percentages (30% and 60%), auditing, and custody requirements. For EMTs issued by e-money institutions, the consultation also asks whether the requirement to hold 30–60% of reserves in bank deposits is appropriate.
The consultation further explores whether EMT-issuing EMIs should be permitted to deposit reserves directly at central banks, whether a dedicated resolution regime should be established, and whether emergency liquidity support (LOLR) facilities should be made available.
Global Stablecoins and Multi-Issuance Models
This is where the consultation becomes most geopolitically charged. A substantial block of questions (Questions 27–40) addresses how MiCA should deal with global stablecoins — tokens with wide reach across multiple jurisdictions, often operated under multi-issuance models where the same stablecoin is issued by entities licensed in different countries.
The Commission asks stakeholders to rate a series of risks: run risk and reserve depletion in the EU, unbalanced reserve distribution across jurisdictions, cross-border transfer restrictions in stress scenarios, regulatory arbitrage exploiting fungibility, supervisory data-tracking challenges, and the danger of third-country jurisdictions lacking adequate prudential standards.
On the safeguard side, the Commission tests appetite for measures including: favouring redemption rights for tokens genuinely circulating in the EU, restricting EU redemption rights to holders who are clients of EU-authorised CASPs, differentiating crisis redemption rights between retail and wholesale holders, requiring dedicated EU liquidity buffers, and mandating real-time reserve and liquidity reporting.
The consultation also asks whether MiCA should introduce an equivalence regime for global stablecoins — allowing reliance on third-country regulatory frameworks under certain conditions. And it raises the sensitive question of whether the current rule — treating all EMTs pegged to an EU currency as offered in the EU — discourages the international role of the euro.
CASPs: Service Scope, Appropriateness Tests, and Global Access
On CASPs, the Commission asks what additional services should be added to the MiCA catalogue and what requirements should apply. It also probes whether introducing an appropriateness test for reception/transmission, execution and placing of crypto-assets would improve retail client protection — a measure that would bring crypto services closer to the conduct regime familiar from MiFID.
For multi-function groups — entities combining crypto-asset services with other regulated or unregulated activities — the Commission asks whether the current governance approach is sufficient or whether enhanced oversight is needed, including options like group-level reporting, supervisory colleges, or consolidated supervision.
A crucial question for market structure asks whether MiCA “sufficiently allows, or unduly restricts, access for EU consumers and investors to non-EU and global crypto asset trading and liquidity pools.” This goes to the heart of the competitiveness debate: does MiCA’s framework channel EU users into shallower EU-only pools, or should full access to global liquidity be the default?
The interplay with PSD3 is also addressed, asking whether the recent Payment Services Directive review has resolved the uncertainties around which crypto-asset services qualify as payment services.
DeFi: From Exclusion to Regulation?
MiCA currently excludes crypto-asset services “provided in a fully decentralised manner without any intermediary." The Commission asks which criteria should determine whether a DeFi application is not fully decentralised — and thus falls within MiCA's scope. Proposed criteria include the existence of an identifiable intermediary, control via admin keys, concentration of governance power, custody of user assets, non-open-source code, and marketing by an identifiable entity.
For fully decentralised protocols, the Commission explores whether risks should be addressed indirectly through CASPs — for example, by imposing due diligence obligations, liability for incidents, or restrictions on connecting clients to uncertified or illicit-activity-associated protocols.
The most structurally significant proposal is the potential introduction of certification schemes for DeFi protocols and smart contracts. The Commission asks whether such schemes should cover all MiCA-scope services (and possibly lending/borrowing), whether they should be issued by private or public entities, whether only significant protocols (measured e.g. by total value locked) should be captured, and whether CASPs should be prohibited from connecting clients to uncertified protocols.
Staking, Lending/Borrowing, and NFTs
The consultation asks whether staking — currently addressed only indirectly through MiCA's custody rules — needs its own regulatory framework. Similarly, it asks whether crypto lending and borrowing should be brought within scope and, if so, what the key regulatory elements should be.
On NFTs, the question is straightforward: does the current state of the market justify regulating providers of NFT-related services?
Prediction Markets, Perpetual Futures, Tokenised Deposits
The emergence of DLT-based prediction markets and the explosive growth in perpetual futures trading since MiCA's adoption receive dedicated attention. The Commission asks whether prediction markets present opportunities or risks for EU consumers and whether they should fall under MiFID or MiCA. The same MiFID-or-MiCA question is posed for perpetual futures on crypto-assets.
For tokenised deposits, digital representations of commercial bank deposits on DLT — the Commission asks whether they raise specific issues under the CRD/CRR framework and whether they create challenges from a deposit insurance perspective.
The Private Law of Tokens
Perhaps the most ambitious section of the consultation deals with the legal treatment of tokens under private law. The Commission acknowledges that MiCA regulates the issuance and offering of crypto-assets but does not address ownership, which remains a matter of national property law.
The consultation asks whether there is legal uncertainty in the private law treatment of token issuance, holding, and transfers — covering issues such as ownership recognition, good faith acquisition, use as collateral, treatment in insolvency, custody chains, and the distinction between native and non-native tokens.
If legal certainty is lacking, the Commission tests several approaches: a"28th regime" recognising the legal effects of DLT registers, full harmonisation, partial harmonisation, or a conflict of laws regime. It also presents five distinct ownership models, ranging from the token being the asset by law (with ownership constituted directly by the ledger entry) to the token functioning as a legal carrier of rights over an off-chain asset.
On conflict of laws, the consultation asks whether EU law should introduce specific rules for tokens and, if so, which connecting factors should apply — including the law specified in the token itself, the law of the system operator's jurisdiction, the law of the issuer's state, or the law of the supervisory authority.
What Comes Next?
Responses to the targeted consultation are due by 31 August 2026 via the Commission's online questionnaire. The results will feed into the Commission's report under Articles 140 and 142 of MiCA and may lead to a formal legislative proposal to amend the regulation.
The breadth and depth of this consultation make clear that the Commission views MiCA not as a settled framework but as a first iteration. Every major pillar and namely the scope, stablecoins, CASPs, and the boundary between regulated and unregulated activity is open for discussion. For stakeholders across the crypto and financial services industries, this is an important opportunity to shape the next generation of EU crypto regulation.
