MiCAR regulation

Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 was adopted on 31 May 2023 and is published in full on EUR-Lex, the EU's official law database. MiCAR is a regulation, so it applies directly in every EU member state without a national transposition act; Germany's addition is the Kryptomärkteaufsichtsgesetz (KMAG), which names BaFin as the competent authority and sets the German transitional rule. The stablecoin rules in Titles III and IV apply since 30 June 2024, and the rest of the regulation, including the crypto-asset service provider rules, applies since 30 December 2024 (Article 149).

MiCAR sorts crypto-assets that no other EU financial law already covers into categories with different duties. Article 3(1)(6) defines an asset-referenced token as one that references a value or right other than a single official currency, including a basket of several currencies. Article 3(1)(7) defines an e-money token as one that references the value of a single official currency, such as the euro. Titles III and IV set the authorization and reserve rules for each. Every other crypto-asset that MiCAR covers but does not put in either category falls under Title II, which sets white paper and marketing rules for the issuer, a lighter duty than the authorization Titles III and IV require. Title V then sets the rules for crypto-asset service providers: firms offering custody, trading, advice, portfolio management and other services around any of these tokens.

A firm that claims to be MiCAR-licensed or MiCAR-compliant should appear in a public register, not only in its own marketing text. The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) publishes a register of authorized crypto-asset service providers and token issuers across the EU, built from the notifications national supervisors send it. In Germany, BaFin keeps its own public register of licensed institutions, including electronic money institutions and crypto-asset service providers it has authorized. Both registers show whether a MiCAR authorization is current, so a reader can confirm it there instead of taking a company's word for it.

MiCAR, compliance and custody were among the topics of the Forum für Digitale Vermögenswerte, a German-language forum with Finance Loop as a partner. At the Bybit EU Crypto Evening at TechQuartier, a senior policy director spoke on compliance under MiCAR. AllUnity, whose EURAU stablecoin is licensed under the MiCAR e-money token rules, has also spoken at Finance Loop-covered events in Frankfurt. EBS Executive School and the law firm HEUKING run a German-language executive program on MiCAR at the EBS campus in Oestrich-Winkel, on licensing and compliance under the regulation. MiCA regulation is a focus of Vienna Blockchain Week, where Finance Loop was an official partner, and the European Blockchain Convention in Barcelona, with Finance Loop as media partner, brings institutional digital asset practitioners together. For German implementation, see MiCA in Germany; related duties are covered in KYC in Germany, with operational resilience discussed in DORA in Germany.

MiCAR is the short form for the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, formally Regulation (EU) 2023/1114. Some German-speaking supervisors and firms use MiCAR where English-language sources more often write MiCA; both names refer to the same regulation text.

MiCA and MiCAR both refer to Regulation (EU) 2023/1114. MiCAR is common in German-language supervisory and legal writing, while MiCA is the more common English short form.

The full text of Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 is published on EUR-Lex, the EU's official law database, in every official EU language including English and German.