On October 5, the European Union’s market watchdog, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), published a second consultative paper on Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) mandates.
The ESMA asks for stakeholders’ opinions on five MiCA topics in the 307-page document, including sustainability indicators for distributed ledgers, disclosures of inside information, technical specifications for white papers, trade transparency measures, and record-keeping for crypto-asset service providers (CASPs).
The authority includes quantitative measurements on energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, and waste creation in its list of sustainability indicators, along with a qualitative assessment of the effects of equipment use by blockchain network nodes on natural resources.
Regarding post-trade transparency, the ESMA suggests mandating CASPs to notify the date and time of trading and publication, the name of the cryptoasset, pricing details, the amount, the execution location, and the transaction ID.
The ESMA further recommends permitting CASPs to save transaction data in “the format they consider most appropriate,” provided they may change it into a certain format upon request from the authorities.
By June 30, 2024, the regulator will submit the draught technical standards to the European Commission together with a final report based on the comments received. But first, in Q1 2024, a third consultation package will be published.
The previous consultation paper from the ESMA was published in July. The ESMA proposed that the crypto firms that would be registered under MiCA still be required to submit notifications to the national competent authorities of the country in which they would be registered with additional information.
