The crypto-asset sector will soon have a first European legal framework, a necessity for this market which attracts many investors but also a lot of controversy, in a context of market collapse. After several months of discussions, the negotiators of the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union found Thursday evening, the last day of the French presidency of the European Union, a provisional agreement on a regulation of the market of crypto-assets (MiCA).
This draft legal framework, a first in Europe, plans to impose a series of obligations on players in the sector in order to “protect investors and preserve financial stability”, according to a press release from the Council of the EU. It covers cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, ethereum, trading platforms and “so-called stablecoin issuers”, cryptocurrencies that claim to be pegged to a currency. Conversely, NFTs, non-fungible tokens in French, are excluded. Currently, no rules exist at European level to regulate the purchase, sale or exchange of cryptoassets, and scams are commonplace.
“The agreement reached on the MiCA regulation is good news,” said Robert Ophèle, president of the AMF, who considers that “it is urgent for the European Union to adopt strong common rules to regulate stablecoins. and crypto-asset service platforms”. An emergency both for consumers and for players who “want to reach maturity in the sector”, assured the French Ministry of the Economy yesterday. From now on, crypto-asset service providers (PSCA) will have to have an authorization from national regulators to carry out their activities within the European Union. In France, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers has already implemented such a registration principle, which currently includes 39 entities. They will also be considered responsible in the event of the loss of the assets held on their platform on behalf of their clients. Last year, thousands of French customers claimed to have lost between 40 and 58 million euros invested on the Binance platform. When a service provider is domiciled outside the European Union, it leaves the bosom of the European stock market regulators, and the defrauded customers find themselves destitute.
New face for the industry
Another draft legislation, on which an agreement was also reached on Wednesday, will complete the MiCA regulation: it concerns the extension to transfers of crypto-assets of the rules on the fight once morest money laundering which currently apply to transfers of capital. For the Association for the Development of Digital Assets (ADAN), these “two major regulatory texts will change the face of the crypto-European industry”, because they constitute “a step towards the harmonization of rules within European markets. in order to “better protect its citizens, while effectively combating financial crime”.
The EU has also decided to tackle stablecoins, whose issuers will have to constitute a sufficiently liquid reserve, and each holder will be able “to be reimbursed at any time and free of charge by the issuer”. In May, the developers of the stablecoin Terra had stopped the algorithm which ensured its stability once morest the dollar following a plunge in the price.
This draft legal framework comes in a context of crisis in the crypto-asset market: bitcoin has lost 70% since its historic peak in November 2021 and the entire market is now worth only 900 billion dollars, two thirds less than at its peak, according to the Coingecko website. Elsewhere in the world, other regulators are looking into the crypto-asset sector. In the United States, it has so far been the American market policeman, the SEC, which has taken charge of the matter, but from an essentially repressive angle, and several dozen legislative proposals have been tabled in the American Congress in recent years. month. More extreme, the central bank of China in September declared all cryptocurrency transactions illegal.
The provisional agreement still needs to be approved by the European Council and Parliament before entering into force.
Juliette VILROBE/AFP
The crypto-asset sector will soon have a first European legal framework, a necessity for this market which attracts many investors but also a lot of controversy, in a context of market collapse. After several months of discussions, the negotiators of the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union found Thursday evening, the last day of the…
