On 4 December 2025, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) issued a statement on the Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA) and its transitional regime for crypto asset service providers (CASPs) that offered their services in accordance with applicable law prior to 30 December 2024.

The statement recalls ESMA’s earlier statements of 17 October 2023 and 17 December 2024.

ESMA then sets out its expectation that CASPs not yet authorised under MiCA:

  • Have implemented orderly wind-down plans for the services they provided in Member States in which the transitional period is over.
  • Have orderly wind down plans in place ready for implementation ahead of the end of the remaining transitional periods in case they should not be authorised by then (or at all). ESMA expects that these plans should allow the CASP to carry out an orderly wind-down without causing undue economic harm to their clients (for instance, organising the transfer of the crypto-assets held for the clients to another authorised CASP).
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ESMA also reminds Member State competent authorities that they are expected to:

  • Treat “last minute” applications for authorisation under MiCA with considerable caution and assess their compliance with MiCA upholding the same standard as for any other, including if that implies the applicant CASP must wind-down its crypto-asset services in (a) given Member State(s) or the European Union more widely while the application is assessed.
  • Be ready to (cooperate with one another to) enforce against the unauthorised provision of crypto-asset services.