MiCA Review: Balancing Regulation with Innovation

The Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA) has created a unified market for crypto asset service providers (CASPs) in Europe, allowing them to passport their services across the bloc and giving clients choice among multiple providers.

This is a genuine achievement that should not be taken for granted. However, as the consultation on MiCA's review closes, the focus should now be on calibration: keeping what works and being honest about where the compliance burden has grown faster than the risks it is meant to address.

Before MiCA, firms wanting to operate across Europe faced a patchwork of national regimes, divergent registration requirements, and in some markets, no bespoke regime at all. A unified market changes the economics of building a serious business, allowing providers to invest in one authorization and one compliance architecture rather than 30.

The relevant question for the review is whether the obligations for market access remain proportionate to the scale of the market they unlock. Regulate the risk, not the activity, is the principle that should guide the review: regulation should apply where there are real risks to market participants or to market stability.