Brussels is reviewing MiCA and the deadline closes in four weeks
Until 31 August 2026 the European Commission is asking the market about interest on stablecoins, recognition of dollar stablecoins and when DeFi is genuinely decentralised. Meanwhile ESMA has been looking inside the vaults of authorised platforms since 8 July.
The European Commission has opened a targeted consultation on the review of MiCA, and the deadline for responses runs until 31 August 2026. That is four weeks away. MiCA has only been fully in force since the end of last year, so this is not a rebuild but a first calibration: which parts work differently in practice than they were meant to on paper.
Four topics stand out, and all four touch directly on what you can do on a European platform.
Interest on stablecoins is back on the table
MiCA prohibits issuers of EMTs and ARTs from paying interest on the tokens they issue. The reasoning was that a stablecoin paying interest becomes a savings product without a savings product's protections. The practice is that European users hold their USDC with a non-European party and collect the yield there, out of the supervisor's sight.
The Commission is now asking explicitly about the effects of that ban and about the reserve requirements attached to it. If the ban is softened, the return on balances you hold with a European platform changes. If it stays, the gap with platforms outside the EU stays too.
Will an American dollar stablecoin count in future?
The second theme is more technical but carries larger consequences. Many large stablecoins are issued in several jurisdictions at once: the same token, partly under European supervision, partly outside it. MiCA has no watertight answer for that. The Commission is exploring whether a form of third-country equivalence could be introduced, recognising supervision outside the EU under conditions.
For the user that is the difference between a trading pair that survives and a trading pair that disappears from your platform. In the run-up to MiCA that already happened to tokens that did not meet the requirements.
DeFi: when is something genuinely decentralised?
MiCA leaves fully decentralised protocols out of scope but gives no criteria for what that means. Over the past two years that gap has been filled with legal opinions that contradict one another. The consultation asks for workable criteria and floats the idea of certifying protocols instead of authorising the parties behind them.
That is a fundamental choice. Certifying code means supervision aims at what a protocol does rather than at who runs it — an approach that exists nowhere else in European financial law.
And meanwhile ESMA is looking in the vault
Separately from the consultation, ESMA launched a Common Supervisory Action with the national supervisors on 8 July. The subject: digital operational resilience at authorised platforms when holding crypto-assets in custody. In concrete terms they are looking at governance, key management and storage, transaction controls, incident detection, smart contract risks and dependency on third-party providers.
It is a risk-based sample, so not every platform gets a visit. The action runs through the second half of 2026 into the first half of 2027, and the final report goes to the Board of Supervisors in the second half of 2027.
This is precisely the part where an authorisation is worth the most. Capital requirements are on paper; whether the keys to your coins really are segregated and stored safely only becomes clear when someone comes to look.
What this is good for
The consultation is open to anyone, not just to lobbyists and law firms. Anyone running into something concrete as a user of a European platform can report it until 31 August to the party writing the rules.
Do not expect change in the short term. A consultation leads to a proposal, a proposal goes to the Parliament and the Council, and that takes years. What already counts today: if your platform holds balances in stablecoins, know who the issuer is and where it is supervised. That is the point this review will pull at first.
Sources: European Commission (targeted consultation on the MiCA review, responses until 31 August 2026), ESMA press release of 8 July 2026 on the Common Supervisory Action, MiCA (Regulation (EU) 2023/1114). Last checked: 4 August 2026.