The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has released a second consultation note on the MiCA regulation
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the regulator of the European Union markets, has published a second consultation note on the mandates of the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation.
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Key points of the consultation
In this 307-page document, ESMA seeks the opinion of stakeholders on five specific areas of MiCA:
- Sustainability indicators for distributed ledgers: These indicators include quantitative measures such as energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and waste production. ESMA is also interested in the qualitative impact of using equipment by blockchain network nodes on natural resources.
- Insider information disclosures: How and when this information should be disclosed.
- Technical requirements for whitepapers: More detailed standards on what these documents should contain.
- Commercial transparency measures: Here, ESMA suggests that crypto-asset service providers (CASP) declare details such as the date and time of trade publication, identification of the crypto-asset, pricing information, quantity, place of execution, and transaction ID.
- Data retention for CASP: While allowing CASPs to store transaction data in the format they deem most appropriate, ESMA insists on these companies’ ability to convert this data into a specified format at the request of the authorities.
Upcoming steps and previous consultation
Following the feedback received, ESMA will publish a final report and submit preliminary technical standards to the European Commission by 30 June 2024. Before that, a third set of consultations is expected in the first quarter of 2024.
As a reminder, ESMA had published a first consultation note in July, in which it proposed requiring crypto companies registered under MiCA to provide additional information in the form of notifications to the competent national authorities (CNA) of the country where they would be registered.
