European Commission proposes MiCA
The European Commission proposed the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, setting out an EU-wide framework for crypto-asset issuers and service providers.
On September 24, the European Commission published its MiCA proposal as part of a broader digital-finance package. The draft sought common rules across the European Union for crypto-assets not already covered by existing financial-services law, including licensing and conduct requirements for service providers.
MiCA was a proposal, not yet binding law in 2020. For Bitcoin, its importance lay less in rules for Bitcoin issuance—Bitcoin has no issuer—than in the future regulation of exchanges, custodians and other businesses through which Europeans access and hold it.
The proposal marked a shift from fragmented national approaches toward a single regional regulatory architecture that would take years to negotiate and implement.
MiCA was still a legislative proposal in September 2020, not binding law. Its importance was the Commission’s attempt to replace the EU’s fragmented national approaches with a common regime for issuers and crypto-asset service providers. Bitcoin itself has no issuer, but exchanges, custodians and other intermediaries serving Bitcoin users would fall within the broader regulatory architecture.