Regulation in Europe

Why this one is local

MiCA was drafted, argued over and voted through in Brussels. Several of our meetups have been within walking distance of the buildings where it happened, and members have worked on and around it. If any topic on this site is ours to write, it is this one.

MiCA

The Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation is the EU's comprehensive crypto framework. Stablecoin provisions applied from June 2024 and the rest from December 2024.

Service providers need authorisation as a CASP in one member state, which then passports across the EU. That covers exchanges, custodians, brokers and advisers. It also brings capital requirements, complaint handling, conflict of interest rules and custody obligations.

Stablecoin issuers face the strictest treatment: segregated reserves, redemption at par, and usage caps once a token becomes significant for payments rather than trading.

Token issuers must publish a whitepaper with prescribed disclosures and fair marketing. This is the direct answer to the 2017 ICO period, when projects raised large sums on documents nobody was accountable for.

What MiCA leaves out

Fully decentralised protocols with no identifiable operator largely fall outside it, as do NFTs that are genuinely unique rather than issued in large fungible series. Lending and staking are covered unevenly.

These gaps are deliberate and contested, and they are where the next round of argument will happen.

The Transfer of Funds Regulation

Running alongside MiCA, this extends the travel rule to crypto: transfers between service providers must carry originator and beneficiary information, with no lower threshold.

It is the provision most in tension with the privacy properties discussed on our Monero evenings, and reconciling the two is an unresolved problem rather than a solved one.

Belgium specifically

Crypto held by a private individual as ordinary asset management is generally not taxed on disposal. Speculative activity is taxable as miscellaneous income, and activity amounting to a profession is taxed as professional income.

Which category applies depends on frequency, borrowing, organisation and intent, and the boundaries are genuinely unclear. The Service des Décisions Anticipées issues advance rulings for those who want certainty.

This is a summary for orientation, not tax or legal advice. Speak to a professional about your own position.

Where to follow it

ESMA and the EBA publish the technical standards that fill MiCA in, and the FSMA supervises in Belgium. Much of the detail that matters commercially sits in those standards rather than in the regulation itself.