On 29 April 2025, the European Commission adopted a Delegated Regulation supplementing the Regulation on markets in crypto-assets (MiCA) with regard to regulatory technical standards (RTS) specifying the arrangements, systems and procedures to prevent, detect and report market abuse, the templates to be used for reporting suspected market abuse, and the coordination procedures between Member State competent authorities for the detection and sanctioning of market abuse in cross-border market abuse situations.

Background

Article 92(1) of MiCA requires persons professionally arranging or executing transactions (PPAETs) in crypto-assets to have in place effective arrangements, systems and procedures to prevent and detect market abuse. Those persons are required to report to the Member State competent authority (NCA) any reasonable suspicion regarding an order or transaction, and other aspects of the functioning of the distributed ledger technology, where there might be circumstances indicating that market abuse has been committed, is being committed or is likely to be committed.

Article 92(2) of MiCA mandates the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) to develop draft RTS to further specify three related elements: appropriate arrangements, systems and procedures for persons to comply with the obligation in Article 92(1), the template to be used by those persons and coordination procedures for NCAs when dealing with cross-border market abuse situations. ESMA consulted on the draft RTS and conducted an open public consultation between 25 March 2024 and 25 June 2024. ESMA received 29 responses. ESMA’s final report was published in December 2024.

The Delegated Regulation is to be adopted in accordance with Article 92(2) of MiCA and Article 290 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

Next steps

The Delegated Regulation enters into force on the twentieth day following its publication in the Official Journal of the EU.