What is MiCA?.

MiCA rests on three pillars. First, a licensing requirement for crypto-asset service providers (CASPs), covering custody, trading venues, exchange services, order execution and advice. Second, strict rules for stablecoins, split into asset-referenced tokens and e-money tokens, with requirements on reserves, redemption and supervision. Third, disclosure: anyone issuing or offering a token must publish a fair, clear and non-misleading document.

A licence from one member state passports across the whole Union. A firm licensed in the Netherlands can therefore serve customers in Belgium, Sweden, Norway or Poland without repeating the process.

MiCA is not a guarantee against loss. Price risk sits entirely with the user, and there is no deposit guarantee scheme for crypto as there is for bank accounts. A licence also says nothing about the quality of a token or a project's chances of success.

Purely decentralised infrastructure without an identifiable provider largely falls outside the regulation, as do genuinely unique NFTs. Further European work is under way on those areas.

In practice you notice MiCA through stricter identification, clearer cost information and mandatory risk warnings. Providers must segregate client assets from their own and maintain policies on complaints, conflicts of interest and outsourcing.

For cross-border users the benefit is comparable rules across the EU. At the same time some providers have narrowed their offering or delisted tokens in order to comply.

National supervisors grant licences and supervise day to day; in the Netherlands the AFM and DNB, in Belgium the FSMA and the National Bank. The European authorities ESMA and EBA coordinate, write technical standards and directly supervise the largest stablecoin issuers.

Enforcement ranges from instructions and fines to withdrawal of a licence. Public registers show which firms are licensed, which is the most direct check a user can run.