EU finance ministers reached a political agreement on Oct. 9 to shift supervision of major crypto companies to a central EU watchdog, reshaping oversight under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA).
The Council of the European Union agreed to give the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) direct responsibility for the bloc's most significant crypto-asset service providers. The move is part of a wider package aimed at integrating European financial markets.
The proposed overhaul targets a weakness in MiCA that allows firms licensed in one member state to serve customers across all 27 countries of the bloc while remaining primarily supervised by their home-country regulator. Under the current framework, a single license obtained in one EU country can be used to operate across the entire union, with oversight concentrated at the national level rather than at the EU level.
By placing the largest crypto-asset service providers under ESMA's direct authority, the agreement seeks to centralize supervision of firms whose scale and cross-border reach make them significant to the bloc's financial markets.
Source: cryptoslate.com
