While American regulators and lawmakers quibble over how to properly oversee the infamously tumultuous digital asset industry, the European Union (EU) Thursday (April 20) became one of the first jurisdictions in the world to actually introduce a comprehensive set of rules surrounding crypto assets and their use.
EU lawmakers voted 517-38 in favor of a crypto licensing framework, Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA), setting the stage to introduce tailored regulations for the crypto industry, centered around protecting users and supporting innovation, into one of the world’s largest and most mature market economies.
The EU Commissioner for Financial Services, Financial Stability and Capital Markets Union, Mairead McGuinness, called it a “world first” in a tweet.
Related: ‘Translating Issues’ Delay Vote On EU Crypto Law
The texts will now have to be formally endorsed by council before publication in the EU Official Journal. They will enter into force 20 days later and come into effect over the next two years, per a release announcing that MiCA had cleared its final parliament vote.
“This puts the EU at the forefront of the token economy,” said Stefan Berger, lead MEP for the MiCA regulation. “Consumers will be protected against deception and fraud, and the sector that was damaged by the FTX collapse can regain trust.
“This regulation brings a competitive advantage for the EU. The European crypto-asset industry has regulatory clarity that does not exist in countries like the U.S.,” he added.
MiCA’s unified regulatory framework for the 27-nation bloc will likely make the group of European nations more attractive to digital-asset companies, as well as put pressure on other jurisdictions to enact their own equivalent guardrails.
