The Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation — Regulation (EU) 2023/1114, universally called MiCA — is the European Union's comprehensive framework for crypto-assets that fall outside existing financial services law. Being a regulation rather than a directive, it applies directly in every member state without national transposition, which is the source of its main practical feature: a licence obtained in one member state passports across the Union.
It applies in two stages. The rules for asset-referenced tokens and e-money tokens — the stablecoin chapters — took effect on 30 June 2024. The rules for crypto-asset service providers followed on 30 December 2024, with transitional arrangements that member states implemented on differing timetables for firms already operating under national regimes.
The stablecoin requirements are the strictest part. An e-money token referencing a single official currency must be issued by an authorised credit institution or electronic money institution, backed by reserves that are segregated and largely held as deposits, and redeemable at par by the holder at any time, without fees. Asset-referenced tokens, which reference a basket or other assets, carry their own authorisation and reserve regime. Significant tokens above defined thresholds attract additional supervision by the European Banking Authority. The practical effect has been visible: several venues restricted or delisted stablecoins whose issuers did not meet the requirements for European users.
For service providers, MiCA covers custody, operation of a trading platform, exchange for funds or other crypto-assets, execution, placement, reception and transmission of orders, advice and portfolio management. Authorised firms face governance, capital, custody-segregation, complaints, conflicts and outsourcing requirements that will be familiar to anyone who has read MiFID. Market abuse provisions — insider dealing, unlawful disclosure and manipulation — apply to crypto-assets admitted to trading, which is a significant change from the position before.
Issuers of other crypto-assets must publish a white paper with prescribed content, notify their national competent authority, and are liable for information in it that is incomplete or misleading. This is a disclosure regime rather than a merit review: the authority does not approve the asset, and publication is not an endorsement.
Two boundaries are worth knowing. MiCA does not cover assets that are already financial instruments under MiFID, which remain under existing law, nor does it cover fully decentralised arrangements with no identifiable service provider — a carve-out whose edges are contested. And it sits alongside the transfer of funds regulation, which extends the travel rule to crypto transfers, and the anti-money-laundering package, so a firm's obligations are not exhausted by MiCA alone.