At its meeting on 20 April, the European Parliament held two votes on essential legal acts concerning markets in crypto-assets.

After the first vote, the EP adopted Regulation on Markets in Crypto-assets (‘MiCA’), which provides a comprehensive regulatory framework for crypto-assets in the European Union. The Regulation includes provisions on supervision, consumer protection, prevention of market manipulation, and countering of money laundering and terrorist financing. In order to combat money laundering, the European Securities and Markets Authority (‘ESMA’) is to create a public register of non-compliant crypto-asset service providers that operate in the European Union without authorisation. The Regulation on MiCA also addresses the impact of crypto-assets on natural environment and requires significant crypto-asset service providers to disclose their energy consumption.

The work on the Regulation has been under way for a few years now. A proposal for a Regulation on MiCA was published by the European Commission on 24 September 2020 as part of the Digital Finance Package.

Now, the Regulation on MiCA requires endorsement by the Council. Then, the new legislation will be published in the Official Journal of the European Union and enter into force 20 days of its announcement.

On 20 April, after the second vote, the EP endorsed the first EU rules on tracing crypto-asset transfers. Just like for other financial operations, the rules are to enable the tracing of crypto-asset transfers and ensure the possibility of blocking suspicious transactions. The so-called ‘travel rule’, previously reserved for traditional finance only, will also cover crypto-asset transfers. Data on the source and beneficiary of the assets will have to ‘travel’ together with the transaction and be stored on both sides of the transfer.

More details can be found here: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/pl/press-room/20230414IPR80133/crypto-assets-green-light-to-new-rules-for-tracing-transfers-in-the-eu