EU Lawmaker Says MiCA Crypto Law Could Be Ready In October

The text for the EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) could be ready in the next six weeks, according to lawmaker Stefan Berger on Thursday (Sept. 1), Coindesk wrote.

The legislation requires crypto asset providers to register with regulators to offer services in the bloc.

There’s no final legal text, though, so there’s uncertainty on the finer parts of the law, including whether the rules will apply to non-fungible tokens (NFT), which offer proof of ownership of assets like art through distributed ledger technology.

The point of the law is to make parameters for how all the EU member nations regulate crypto, such as possibly making a common licensing regime, making it easier for companies operating in one member nation to roll out in the others. There could also be definite rules for stablecoin issuance.

The final deal will see any crypto service provider with more than 15 million active users subject to supervision at the European level, meaning all but the biggest players would be under the watch of regulators like Germany’s Bafin.

Berger is a German politician and led negotiations for the European Parliament for MiCA. He said technical work is still underway on the law.

“I’d say in four to six weeks” the text will be ready, Berger said. “We’re all working on it, eight hours a day, it’s in the process … but I think in six weeks we should have something ready to present.”

PYMNTS wrote recently that some firms have chosen to route their EU operations through other licenses to keep a regional foothold, taking advantage of EU passporting rules.