Regulation of Markets in Crypto-Assets in the EU

Across the last decade, crypto-assets have moved from a nascent phenomenon to a subject of core concern for financial law and supervision. In response, the European Union adopted the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR) in December 2024, aligning disclosure, authorization, and conduct rules with the realities of token issuance and intermediation. Situated within the wider digital finance agenda in Brussels, the regulatory settlement raises doctrinal questions about market integrity, consumer protection, and supervisory coordination across the European Securities and Markets Authority, the European Banking Authority, and national competent authorities. This volume offers a comprehensive, in-depth, and fully up-to-date analysis of MiCAR within this rapidly evolving regulatory landscape.

Edited by Filippo Annunziata and Rosa Maria Lastra, the book translates the Regulation into a clear, usable map. After setting the architecture in context, it demonstrates how the rules operate in practice. It traces connections with the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and the Distributed Ledger Technology Pilot Regime (DLT Pilot Regime), clarifies token categories and what they mean for issuers and crypto-asset service providers, and explains how licensing, disclosure, and white paper obligations align with market realities. Readers gain a precise view of enforcement touchpoints in market abuse and anti-money laundering, cross-border private-law disputes, and comparative examples from the United Kingdom and the United States. Extending beyond a purely descriptive commentary, the volume also incorporates stand-alone analyses of closely related fields central to MiCAR's application.

Beyond the core text of MiCAR, the volume systematically addresses interaction of the Regulation with the broader EU legislative landscape, including: MiFID II (distribution rules and conduct of business); Prospectus Regulation (prospectus and white-papers); AIFMD (the boundary between crypto-funds and collective investment schemes); MAR (market abuse, market manipulation and inside information in crypto markets); the novel EU AML/CFT framework, including the recent Anti-Money Laundering Regulation; the DLT Pilot Regime; the proposed Digital Euro Regulation; private international law instruments as they apply to crypto-assets; and the EU sustainable finance regime, with a dedicated analysis of ESG considerations under MiCAR. This cross-regulatory coverage ensures that readers gain a full picture of how MiCAR interacts with - and is shaped by - the wider body of EU financial law.

The chapters explain the key interpretative choices facing authorities and firms, anticipate early litigation themes, and examine decentralized autonomous organizations, decentralized finance, sustainability implications, and the prospective digital euro. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners and a scope that reaches well beyond the core Regulation, the volume delivers a uniquely wide-ranging and authoritative treatment of MiCAR and its surrounding ecosystem. For legal practitioners, scholars, compliance teams, and supervisors, Regulation of Markets in Crypto-Assets in the EU is a single, authoritative and comprehensive guide to navigating the European legal framework for crypto-assets.