MiCA
The EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, a single rulebook for crypto issuers and service providers across all member states.
MiCA, short for Markets in Crypto-Assets, is the European Union's regulation for crypto markets, and the first attempt anywhere to give an entire economic bloc one crypto rulebook. It entered into force in June 2023 and applied in stages: rules for stablecoin issuers from 30 June 2024, and the licensing regime for crypto-asset service providers from 30 December 2024.
The design has two main pillars. Issuers of stablecoins (MiCA calls them e-money tokens and asset-referenced tokens) face reserve, redemption and disclosure requirements. Exchanges, brokers, custodians and similar businesses must be authorised as crypto-asset service providers, with one licence passportable across all 27 member states instead of separate approvals country by country.
For a user in the EU the visible effects are indirect: which tokens platforms may offer, what disclosures accompany them, and which firms may operate at all. A concrete example is the stablecoin market, where issuers without MiCA-compliant arrangements saw their tokens delisted for EU customers by several venues through 2024 and 2025.
MiCA sits alongside, not instead of, the EU's anti-money-laundering rules such as the travel rule. This entry is descriptive only: what the regulation is, not advice about any product or provider.