Published: 21 May 2026 · Jurisdiction: European Union
Two years into MiCA, the European Commission has opened the question that every crypto founder, GC and compliance lead in the EU has been waiting for: is this rulebook actually working?
On 20 May 2026 it launched two consultations — a short one for the public and a serious one for industry, supervisors and central banks. Both close on 31 August 2026, 23:59 CEST. The responses will feed the Commission's mandated review report. If the gaps look big enough, a legislative proposal will follow. The market is already calling it MiCA 2.
This is the moment to influence the rules you'll be living under for the next decade. Here is what's actually being asked, what it tells us about where Brussels is heading, and what to do before the deadline.
What just happened
The Article 140 review and the Article 142 "what did we leave out" report were both built into MiCA when it was passed. The Article 142 report was originally due in December 2024 and the interim Article 140 report in June 2025; both deadlines slipped. This consultation is how the Commission catches up — and goes considerably further than a tidy review.
The targeted consultation document runs to 65 questions across four parts. It is technical, granular, and unusually frank in places. The Commission also flags an underlying driver throughout: its simplification agenda for EU competitiveness. Respondents are invited, repeatedly, to identify burdens that can be cut.
What's on the table
1. Where does MiFID end and MiCA begin?
The very first question reopens the perimeter. Should tokenised financial instruments stay under the traditional sectoral regime (MiFID II, MiFIR, MAR, the Prospectus Regulation), or should everything that lives on a distributed ledger fall under MiCA? Two years of ESMA guidance has not fully cleared the fog around hybrid tokens, wrapped assets, tokenised fund interests, governance tokens, and the favourite class to dodge classification — "assets marketed as NFTs but issued in series".
MiCA's Title II disclosure regime — the white paper, marketing rules, the 14-day retail right of withdrawal, civil liability — is then opened up provision by provision. The Commission is also explicitly floating two new interventions: marketing restrictions on "algorithmic or gamified" tactics aimed at retail investors, and mandatory lock-up or vesting schedules for founder and early-investor tokens.
2. Stablecoins — where the real fight is
The longest block, and the one with the most political weight. The Commission opens it with a striking line: after almost two years in force, not a single asset-referenced token has been licensed in the EU. It then asks respondents whether that's because nobody wants ARTs, or because the regime makes them impossible to launch. Putting that question on page one tells you the Commission already has its own view.
The walk-through is comprehensive:
- Capital and reserves. The EUR 350,000 floor, the 2% reserve charge, the 30%/60% bank-deposit floor, custody, audit, and the 1.5% bank-token concentration limit — all up for recalibration.
- Bank-issued EMTs. Today, credit institutions issuing EMTs sit outside the reserve-segregation regime that non-banks face. The Commission is asking whether to change that — and whether to require issuance through a legally separate entity.
- The interest prohibition. Articles 40 and 50 currently ban paying interest on stablecoins. Question 20 puts a clean binary on the page: keep the prohibition, or open it up. The Commission is signalling it expects a real argument.
- Redemption. Par for EMTs, market value for ARTs, no fees, hard timing. Each lever can be tightened or loosened.
- The resolution toolkit. This is where the document goes furthest. Question 25 asks about EMT issuers depositing reserves directly at the ECB, ring-fenced insolvency claims for token holders, a dedicated resolution regime for EMIs issuing EMTs, and — most striking — emergency liquidity / lender-of-last-resort facilities for those issuers. These are not the questions you ask about a payment product. They are the questions you ask about a bank.
- Global stablecoins. The multi-issuance model is under review. So is the rule that any EMT denominated in a euro is automatically deemed offered to the EU. An equivalence regime for third-country stablecoin frameworks is being floated.
- EU economic security. Question 33 frames euro-denominated stablecoins as a payment-autonomy and international-role-of-the-euro question. This is the strategic-autonomy lens the ECB and several member states will push hardest — and it is the EU's direct response to the US GENIUS Act.
3. CASPs — narrower than you might expect
There are now around 170 CASPs on the ESMA register, from 18 Member States. Before reading the questions, note what is not in this consultation: supervisory architecture. CASP supervision is being handled separately under the Market Integration and Supervision Package, which is moving toward centralised ESMA oversight of major cross-border firms. PSD3/R has also already settled the payments/MiCA boundary, so that question is treated as closed.
What is in: whether the Article 3(16) services list is still complete, whether to add an appropriateness test for execution and placement, what supervisors can do about non-EU CASPs still serving EU clients without authorisation, and whether the EUR 50k / 125k / 150k minimum capital tiers in Annex IV are right. Multi-function groups — firms combining CASP services with traditional regulated activity — get particular attention, with the Commission floating group-level reporting, supervisory colleges and consolidated supervision. CASPs currently have no general reporting duty; the Commission is asking whether to introduce one, covering direct holdings, derivatives exposures, leverage and counterparty risk. Sustainability disclosure and DORA interplay round out the block.
4. Beyond MiCA — the frontier
This is the Article 142 block. The official scope is decentralised finance, staking, lending and borrowing, NFTs, and legal certainty for crypto-assets and other on-chain assets — particularly natively issued ones.
DeFi gets the most detailed treatment. The Commission is stress-testing MiCA's "fully decentralised" carve-out by asking which indicators — admin keys, governance concentration, custody, marketing by an identifiable entity, open-source status — should determine whether a protocol is actually decentralised. It is then floating concrete tools: CASP due-diligence duties over front-ends, certification schemes for protocols and smart contracts, public or private whitelists and blacklists, and limits on which DeFi front-ends CASPs can connect their clients to.
The legal-certainty question is the one that matters most for institutional tokenisation. Property law, custody, transfer of title and the legal status of natively issued on-chain assets sit at the centre of every tokenised-fund and tokenised-deposit business plan. Clarity here unlocks the biggest infrastructure prize in the document.
(Industry summaries circulating on LinkedIn also mention prediction markets and tokenised deposits in this block. These aren't in the official Part 4 introduction; respondents who want to raise them should use the open-ended question at the end of the questionnaire.)
Read between the lines
A few things in the document signal where the Commission is heading.
The Commission wants ARTs to work. Putting "no ARTs licensed in two years" at the top of the stablecoins block is not neutral framing. Expect recalibration, not abolition.
Stablecoins are being repositioned as monetary infrastructure. Central-bank reserve accounts, LOLR access, a dedicated resolution regime — these are bank-style questions, not payment-product questions. Significant EMTs are being treated as systemic.
Strategic autonomy is the through-line. From the euro-stablecoin framing in Question 33 to the multi-issuance debate to the equivalence regime, MiCA 2 is being positioned as an instrument of EU payment sovereignty. That shifts where the political weight lands in Council.
The interest prohibition is in genuine play. Articles 40 and 50 were the most fought-over parts of MiCA when it was adopted. Asking the binary question now means the Commission is open to a different answer than the one it landed on in 2023.
The simplification opening is real. Industry has a rare invitation to argue against gold-plating in the Level 2 RTSs. Don't waste it on generic "support proportionality" replies.
What to do before 31 August
The targeted consultation is the formal channel to shape MiCA 2. Five priorities:
- Pick your two or three highest-stakes questions and write substantive answers. The Commission explicitly says responses are "most useful where they present a clear and detailed narrative, demonstrated by data". Generic positions don't move drafting.
- Stablecoin issuers — focus on own-funds calibration (Q11), reserves and the 30%/60% floor (Q14-Q15), the interest prohibition (Q20), redemption rights (Q23), and the multi-issuance model (Q30).
- CASPs — focus on the services list (Q45-Q46), the appropriateness test (Q47), prudential calibration (Q49-Q50), the reporting question (Q52), and multi-function group rules (Q51).
- DeFi, tokenisation and on-chain-asset platforms — Part 4 is where your perimeter for the next decade gets drawn. The decentralisation indicators (Q61) and the legal-certainty question are the two to engage with seriously.
- Coordinate with national associations. NCAs and finance ministries will respond to the targeted track, and they weigh industry positions when they do.
The full Article 140 report is due 30 June 2027. A legislative proposal, if one follows, will then move through the ordinary legislative procedure. Plan on a multi-year drafting cycle. But the substantive direction is being set this summer.
If you want help mapping your product against the right questions or drafting a response that will actually be read, contact us.
Sources
- European Commission, "Commission seeks feedback on the functioning of EU crypto-assets rules", 20 May 2026 — press release
- Targeted consultation page and consultation document (PDF)
- Public consultation page
- Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 (MiCA), Articles 140 and 142
- Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1506 on significance criteria for ARTs and EMTs
- EBA No Action letter on the PSD2/3-MiCA interplay
The information provided is not legal, tax, investment, or accounting advice and should not be used as such. It is for discussion purposes only. Seek guidance from your own legal counsel and advisors on any matters. The views presented are those of the author and not any other individual or organization. Some parts of the text may be automatically generated. The author of this material makes no guarantees or warranties about the accuracy or completeness of the information.