MiCA: A New Era In Crypto Regulation

2022 was a challenging year for both crypto-assets and crypto-asset service providers. Fuelled by global crises, rising interest rates, the collapse of popular crypto projects like Terra Luna, major crypto-asset service providers like Celsius, and most spectacularly, FTX, the world's second-largest crypto exchange, the crypto bull market of 2021 quickly turned into a bear market in 2022.

In terms of regulatory developments, nothing was as closely monitored by the European crypto sector in 2022 as the "Trilogue" negotiations between the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament ("EP") and the European Commission on the proposal for a Regulation of the EP and of the Council on Markets in Crypto-assets (and amending Directive (EU) 2019/1937) ("MiCA"). After long and intense debate among co-legislators, a political agreement on the final text of the MiCA was reached at the end of June 2022.