The European Commission called a formal review of its 2024 Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation on May 20, asking publicly whether MiCA is still “fit for purpose.” Regulators don’t reopen flagship frameworks after two years unless the trade they originally priced is going wrong.
MiCA was written between 2018 and 2024 to contain a market that looked like a high-risk offshore casino: Binance’s money-laundering probes, Terra/Luna’s collapse, FTX’s implosion, billions in retail losses. The framework’s licensing requirements, reserve standards, and disclosure rules made sense for that market. That market no longer exists.
Today, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange is integrating blockchain as capital markets infrastructure. The US has moved from adversarial to iterative on crypto: the SEC is reportedly readying a “regulation crypto” proposal, the FDIC and OCC have aligned on a stablecoin prudential framework, and the White House Council of Economic Advisers has published findings that potentially favor crypto firms over traditional banks.
What does Europe actually get for its compliance costs? ECB President Christine Lagarde warned on May 8 that dollar stablecoins risk “entrenching dollar dependency at the level of settlement infrastructure itself.” She’s right to worry. Dollar-linked stablecoins dominate globally while euro-denominated alternatives remain fragmented. MiCA’s prescriptive reserve rules may have constrained European issuers precisely when they needed room to compete with USDT and USDC.
The market’s answer is already forming: Qivalis, a euro stablecoin consortium, now counts 37 banks from 15 European countries, including ABN Amro, BNP Paribas, and Rabobank, and plans to launch in H2 2026.
The consultation closes August 31.
— Diana Kowalski