MiCAR 2.0: Examining the ECB and ESCB responses

EU RegCORE Client Alert | EU Digital Single Market, financial services and crypto-assets

The first review of the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR) is no longer a narrow post-implementation clean-up. Read together, the September 2026 published responses to the MiCAR consultation from the European Banking Authority (EBA) and from the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) point toward a second-generation EU digital-finance architecture.Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 May 2023 on markets in crypto-assets (2023) OJ L 150/40 (MiCAR); European Banking Authority, 'EBA Response to the EC Targeted Consultation on the Review of MiCA' (24 September 2026) (EBA Response); European System of Central Banks, 'ESCB response to the European Commission's targeted consultation on the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR)' (September 2026) (ESCB Response). The expression 'MiCAR 2.0' in this alert is descriptive shorthand only and is not the title of an existing legislative proposal.Show Footnote The common direction is not to bring every tokenised activity inside MiCAR. It is almost the opposite: preserve technological neutrality and the sectoral rulebook, while repairing the interfaces that are beginning to matter commercially—stablecoin liquidity, bank issuance models, third-country multi-issuance, group supervision, crypto lending, tokenised deposits, settlement and the private-law treatment of tokens. 'MiCAR 2.0' is used here as shorthand for that review process, not as the name of an existing legislative proposal.

The two responses overlap substantially, but not completely. The EBA starts repeatedly from limited supervisory experience: as at 1 September 2026, 39 e-money tokens (EMTs) had been issued under MiCAR, 36 by electronic money institutions (EMIs), while no asset-referenced token (ART) had yet been authorised. Its instinct is therefore often to clarify, collect evidence and use cost-benefit analysis before wholesale recalibration. The ESCB is more architecture-focused: it would redesign reserve liquidity, broaden financial-stability intervention, strengthen CASP and multi-function group supervision and use EU-level legal reform to prevent tokenisation from reproducing the fragmentation of national property, corporate and insolvency law. The EBA response is therefore best read as an implementation and supervisory baseline whereas the ESCB response is best read as a policy signal for where the next legislative cycle could become more structural. Neither is (as of yet) a reflection of the applicable law.EBA Response, pp 6 and 9-10 (39 EMTs issued as at 1 September 2026, 36 by EMIs, and no authorised ARTs; prudential calibration); ESCB Response, pp 2-6 (key messages on stablecoins, CASPs, crisis management and the wider digital-asset landscape).Show Footnote

Why this matters now

For firms, the important point is not whether every recommendation becomes law. The responses identify the assumptions most likely to be challenged as digital finance moves into mainstream banking and capital markets. A stablecoin business can no longer be modelled only against MiCAR Titles III and IV. A CASP cannot assume that entity-level authorisation will remain the end-state for a global group. A bank cannot treat a tokenised deposit and an EMT as merely two technology wrappers around the same product. A market infrastructure cannot assume technological atomicity equals legal finality. And a third-country issuer cannot assume that establishing an EU entity solves the reserve, redemption and supervisory problems created by a globally fungible token.

The Commission's targeted consultation closes on 30 September 2026. MiCAR then requires the Commission, by 30 June 2027, to report on the Regulation and, where appropriate, accompany that report with a legislative proposal. The review is therefore not yet a legislative package. It is, however, already a useful forward-looking map of the policy choices around which firms should build scenarios.European Commission, Targeted consultation on the review of Regulation on the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) (opened 20 May 2026; closing 30 September 2026); MiCAR art 140(1), requiring the Commission by 30 June 2027 to present a report on MiCAR and, where appropriate, a legislative proposal.Show Footnote

The emerging proposition is simple: the next phase is likely to be less about enlarging the crypto silo and more about connecting crypto regulation to the rest of financial regulation. That is a much more consequential exercise.

Five shifts in the architecture

1. From classification to interfaces. Both authorities defend technological neutrality and the sectoral treatment of tokenised financial instruments and deposits. The pressure point is increasingly the boundary between MiCAR, MiFID/MiFIR, CRR/CRD, PSD3/PSR and national private law, not an attempt to place every token under one rulebook.EBA Response, pp 5-8 (tokenised financial instruments, ART classification and wrapped/hybrid tokens); ESCB Response, pp 7-8 (technological neutrality, sectoral regulation and boundaries between MiCAR and other EU financial-services legislation).Show Footnote
2. From a deposit quota to a liquidity stack. The EBA would not remove the 30%/60% bank-deposit minimum without further evidence and strong liquid-asset safeguards. The ESCB would replace the fixed quota with one-day and five-day liquidity buckets, using the EBA draft RTS as a starting point. The question shifts from where reserves sit to how quickly they can meet redemptions without transmitting stress elsewhere.EBA Response, pp 11-13 and 19-21 (reserve assets, bank-deposit minima and interaction with bank liquidity); ESCB Response, pp 11-15 (prudential and liquidity framework, contagion channels and possible alternatives to fixed deposit requirements).Show Footnote
3. More flexibility on the asset side, a tighter fence on the liability side. The ESCB's reserve proposal is not a deregulatory package. It pairs greater flexibility over reserve composition with a firm defence of the prohibition on stablecoin remuneration, including concern that lending, staking, loyalty benefits and layered DeFi structures can recreate yield indirectly.EBA Response, p 16 and pp 33-34 (continued prohibition on interest and interest-equivalent remuneration and lending/yield concerns); ESCB Response, pp 17-18 (direct and indirect remuneration, lending, staking, rewards and DeFi arrangements).Show Footnote
4. From issuer supervision to group architecture. CASPs, EMT/ART issuers and mixed financial groups are moving toward risk-sensitive capital, group-level reporting, supervisory colleges, consolidated oversight and, for significant third-country groups, possible EU intermediate parent undertakings (IPUs). The regulatory unit is beginning to look more like the economic group than the individual licence.EBA Response, pp 29-31 (group-level reporting, supervisory colleges, consolidated supervision and possible EU intermediate parent undertakings); ESCB Response, pp 33-35 and 41-42 (significant CASPs, group-level oversight and consolidated prudential treatment).Show Footnote
5. From crypto regulation to market architecture. The ESCB's private-law discussion reaches ownership, transfer, collateral, custody and insolvency; its settlement analysis puts central bank money at the core of wholesale tokenisation. Pontes is now operational, so that proposition is no longer merely a future design choice. The question is whether Europe can make its regulatory, legal and settlement layers work as one market.ESCB Response, pp 49-52 (property, transfer, collateral, custody, insolvency and possible EU private-law responses); European Central Bank, 'Eurosystem brings central bank money to tokenised finance' (21 September 2026) (launch of Pontes for wholesale tokenised-asset settlement in central bank money).Show Footnote

The five shifts above provide a high-level map; the table below offers a more granular comparison across sixteen specific issues. It distinguishes areas where the EBA takes an implementation-led approach from those where the ESCB points toward more structural reform.