EU targets MiCA loophole that lets crypto exchanges serve 27 countries with one license

What happened

EU finance ministers agreed to shift oversight of major crypto companies to a central watchdog, reshaping supervision under MiCA (the EU’s regulation for crypto markets). The Council of the European Union reached a political agreement on Oct.

9 to give the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) direct responsibility for the bloc's most significant crypto-asset service providers, as part of a wider package to integrate European financial markets. The proposed overhaul addresses a weakness in the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) , which allows firms licensed in one member state to serve customers across the 27-country bloc while remaining primarily supervised by their home-country regulator.

The Council’s selective ESMA model would address part of MiCA’s cross-border supervision gap while retaining national oversight elsewhere. The compromise, however, is considerably narrower than the European Commission's original plan to move all crypto service providers under ESMA.