EU Regulator ESMA Urges Countries to Ensure Compliance with Stablecoin Rules as Soon as Possible
The European Securities and Markets Authority urged national authorities in the European Union (EU) to ensure that exchanges no longer make non-compliant stablecoins available for trading within the next two months.
The regulator has requested that the 27 member states in the EU ensure that crypto asset service providers (CASP) comply with its stablecoin rules “no later than the end of Q1 2025,” ESMA said in a statement on Friday.
“In practice, this means that CASPs operating a trading platform for crypto-assets are expected to stop producing all crypto-assets that would qualify as ARTs and EMTs but where the issuer is not authorized to EU (“non-MiCA compliant ARTs and EMTs” ) available for trading,” ESMA said. ARTs are asset referenced tokens and EMTs are electronic money tokens.
The move will affect stablecoins that do not comply with EU laws such as Tether’s USDT if they are offered to EU clients. Large issuers have already taken steps to try and comply with MiCA. Tether announced this in November has discontinued its euro stablecoinEURT. The company has not obtained an e-money license to operate in the EU. Circle obtained an e-money license in July.
Exchanges such as Gemini and Coinbase, which are registered in the EU, will have to remove unauthorized stablecoins, according to the ESMA statement. Coinbase has previously announced that it will remove any such tokens last December.
“Due to our commitment to compliance, we have restricted the provision of services to Retail, Exchange, and Prime Vault customers of Coinbase Europe Limited, Coinbase Germany GmbH, and Coinbase Custody International Limited with respect to stablecoins that do not meet the requirements of MiCA starting December 13, 2024,” a spokesperson from Coinbase told CoinDesk on Tuesday.
The exchange will “assess reactivation of services for stablecoins that achieve MiCA compliance at a later date,” the spokesperson said.
CoinDesk has reached out to Gemini for a comment.
Read more: Tough EU Stablecoin Rules Coming Soon and Issuers Running Out of Time
