EU regulator postpones adoption of law on cryptocurrencies

The European Parliament’s landmark vote on the adoption of a law on cryptocurrencies has been postponed. The Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) bill is expected to be adopted in April 2023. Thus, the new rules for regulating digital assets will come into effect later than expected.

According to a spokesperson for the European Parliament, the delay is rather «technical» — most likely, it is caused by translation difficulties. According to EU regulations, the 400-page MiCA document is to be translated into the 24 official languages of the EU member states.

The MiCA law will allow Europe to become the first part of the world to establish clear rules for regulating digital assets. However, it will not include control over DeFi (decentralized financial systems). Already this year, the European Commission plans to publish a separate report and launch a pilot project for «DeFi supervision».

Interestingly, the MiCA rules will cover only cryptocurrencies — the issue of non-fungible tokens and stablecoins is still open. However, it was previously reported that the European Commission is ready to add rules to the MiCA that will regulate the circulation of NFTs, as well as consider the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies based on the PoW (Proof-of-work) algorithm.

It should be added that the historic law on cryptocurrencies is likely to affect crypto-influencers as well — MiCA contains a section on controlling the activities of bloggers who talk about digital assets. If the law had already been adopted and entered into force on a territory wider than the EU’s jurisdiction, model Kim Kardashian and boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. would be held criminally liable for illegal advertising of crypto assets. Also, the crypto blogger Bitboy Crypto, who in July 2021 urged his viewers to invest in the DOCK cryptocurrency, which turned out to be a fraudulent scheme, could be prosecuted.