Section 3 of 9
Who the regime catches
Section 2 sorted the asset; this section sorts you. By the end of it you can name the role a business plays — issuer, admission-seeker, or service provider — say which of the ten services a desk actually performs, know who is allowed to perform them at all, and walk the perimeter’s one famous edge: reverse solicitationThe narrow exemption letting a non-EU firm serve an EU client who approached it entirely on their own initiative. Construed narrowly and factually — a disclaimer cannot outweigh contrary facts., covered here by name and in full.
In one screen · section 3 of 9
MiCA binds people, not just tokens: issuers and offerors of tokens, persons seeking a trading admission, and providers of any of the ten crypto-asset services. Each role has its own rulebook.
The perimeter has one famous edge: a non-EU firm serving EU clients without a licence. That is reverse solicitationThe narrow exemption letting a non-EU firm serve an EU client who approached it entirely on their own initiative. Construed narrowly and factually — a disclaimer cannot outweigh contrary facts., and the guidelinesA supervisory authority's published position on how rules should be applied. EU guidelines bind authorities on a comply-or-explain basis — they are not themselves the law. close every door a business model could be built through.
Which hat is the firm wearing?
MiCA binds people through three roles, and a single firm can wear more than one hat at once. An offeror or issuerputs a token into the world — their duties follow the token’s sort from Section 2. A person seeking admission to trading wants a token listed on a platform — a narrower role with white-paper duties of its own. And a crypto-asset service provider— a CASPCrypto-asset service provider — a firm authorised under MiCA to provide one or more of the ten listed crypto-asset services in the EU. One home-state authorisation covers the whole Union. — does things with other people’s tokens for a living. The rest of this section is mostly about the third hat, because that is where most desks live.
Check yourself
Alderhaven issues its own utility token AND runs a custody desk for clients. How many rulebooks is it inside?
The ten services — the whole CASP perimeter
“Crypto-asset service” is a closed list of ten. If what a desk does is on the list, it needs authority to do it; if it is genuinely off the list, the CASPCrypto-asset service provider — a firm authorised under MiCA to provide one or more of the ten listed crypto-asset services in the EU. One home-state authorisation covers the whole Union. regime does not bite. Read them as a menu of what can be licensed — an authorisation names which of the ten it covers:
- 1.Custody and administration — safekeeping or controlling clients' crypto-assets — or the keys to them
- 2.Operating a trading platform — running a multilateral system that matches third-party buying and selling interests
- 3.Exchange for funds — buying from and selling to clients against money, off the firm's own book
- 4.Exchange for other crypto-assets — the same trade, crypto for crypto, off the firm's own book
- 5.Execution of orders — concluding deals on clients' behalf, on someone else's venue
- 6.Placing — marketing a new crypto-asset to buyers for the offeror
- 7.Reception and transmission — taking a client's order and passing it to whoever executes
- 8.Advice — personal recommendations about crypto-assets
- 9.Portfolio management — discretionary management of a client's crypto-asset portfolio
- 10.Transfer services — moving crypto-assets between addresses on clients' behalf
Two on the list repay a careful read. Custody covers controlling the means of access— hold a client’s private keysThe secret number that signs transactions from an address. Possession of the key is control of the funds. and you are a custodian, whatever the marketing says. And the two exchange services are dealing against the firm’s own capital; matching other people’s orders is the platform service, a different licence line with heavier duties.
Check yourself
A wallet app holds users' private keysThe secret number that signs transactions from an address. Possession of the key is control of the funds. 'for convenience' and charges nothing for it. Is it providing a crypto-asset service?
Who is allowed to provide them?
Two doors into the CASPCrypto-asset service provider — a firm authorised under MiCA to provide one or more of the ten listed crypto-asset services in the EU. One home-state authorisation covers the whole Union. business. The main door is authorisation: a legal person authorised as a CASP, with a registered office in a member state where it performs at least part of its services, effective management in the EU, and at least one resident director. The side door is for firms already licensed elsewhere in finance: a credit institution, investment firm, e-money institution, fund manager and a handful of others may provide crypto-asset services by notifying their authority at least 40 working days before starting — a notification, not a new authorisation, and for some of them only for the services matching their existing licence.
Either way, the authority’s answer ends up in a register — which is why this course’s sibling programme on licensing and registers exists. If a counterparty claims to be a CASPCrypto-asset service provider — a firm authorised under MiCA to provide one or more of the ten listed crypto-asset services in the EU. One home-state authorisation covers the whole Union., there is a public place where that claim is checkable.
Check yourself
A bank wants to add crypto custody for its clients. Does it apply for a CASPCrypto-asset service provider — a firm authorised under MiCA to provide one or more of the ten listed crypto-asset services in the EU. One home-state authorisation covers the whole Union. authorisation?
Which offers skip the white paper?
Title II’s offer duties have deliberate dimmer switches, and knowing them saves real money in both directions. The offer rules do not apply to:
- an offer to fewer than 150 persons per member state;
- a total offer under €1 million across 12 months;
- an offer only to — and holdable only by — qualified investors;
- tokens given genuinely free (data or fees paid make it not free);
- tokens created automatically as validation rewards;
- a utility token for a good or service that already exists and operates;
- tokens usable only in a limited network of contracted merchants.
The switch turns off the offer paperwork, never the regime: the asset is still a crypto-asset, and every service around it is still a crypto-asset service.
Check yourself
A protocol's token is created purely as a validator reward — no sale, no issuer. Its founder concludes 'MiCA doesn't apply to us'. Right or wrong?
The perimeter’s edge — this is about reverse solicitation
Here is the boundary every non-EU business model tests. A third-country firm needs no EU authorisation for a service a client in the Union sought at the client’s own exclusive initiative. That is the whole exemption — and the Regulation itself then closes the doors. Solicitation by any means defeats it, and solicitation through anyone acting on the firm’s behalf counts as the firm’s own. No contract clause or disclaimer can override the facts. And even a genuine reverse-solicitation client cannot be marketed new types of crypto-asset afterwards.
The guidelinesA supervisory authority's published position on how rules should be applied. EU guidelines bind authorities on a comply-or-explain basis — they are not themselves the law. go further still: general brand advertising reaching the EU public may count, influencers count when the firm is behind them, and the second half of the guidelines is a detection-methods list addressed to the supervisors watching. Whatever the pitch deck says, this exemption is a narrow factual defence — not a distribution channel.
Check yourself
An EU client genuinely found a non-EU exchange unprompted last year. This year the exchange emails her about its new staking product. Still exempt?
Which stack is yours?
Seven archetypes, each opening onto the instruments that person must know first — every row at its registry lifecycle stage, with the text one click away. The archetypes are teaching shapes, not advice: which one you are is exactly the perimeter analysis this section just taught.
You run a trading platformA CASPCrypto-asset service provider — a firm authorised under MiCA to provide one or more of the ten listed crypto-asset services in the EU. One home-state authorisation covers the whole Union. operating a multilateral system matching third-party interests — the heaviest service on the list.
Everything the custody archetype carries, plus the venue's own duties and the market-abuse watch.
Title V — authorisation and the CASP obligations themselves
what the application contains
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/305 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the application's forms and templates
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/306 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗complaints handling machinery
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/294 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗continuity and regularity of the service
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/299 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the records of services, orders and transactions
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1140 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗conflicts of interest
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1142 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the order bookThe live list of buy and sell orders on a trading venue, by price and size. MiCA's record-keeping standards prescribe how a crypto trading platform must keep it.'s transparency data
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/416 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the platform's operating machinery
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/417 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the abuse watch and the STORA suspicious transaction or order report — what a platform files with its authority when trading looks like market abuse. The template is prescribed down to the fields.
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/885 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the STOR's template and timing
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2861 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the ICT resilience layer over everything above
You custody, and nothing elseA CASPCrypto-asset service provider — a firm authorised under MiCA to provide one or more of the ten listed crypto-asset services in the EU. One home-state authorisation covers the whole Union. safekeeping clients' crypto-assets or their keys — no venue, no dealing, no advice.
The operating core without the venue layer — and read the abuse watch to check whether you arrange or execute at all.
Title V, plus Art 75's custody-specific duties
what the application contains
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/305 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the application's forms and templates
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/306 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗complaints handling machinery
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/294 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗continuity — custody outages are client-visible in minutes
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/299 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the records that prove what you held, when
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1140 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗conflicts of interest
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1142 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗check its perimeter against your facts: the watch binds those who arrange or execute
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/885 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the ICT resilience layer — for a custodian, the main event
You advise, or manage portfoliosA CASPCrypto-asset service provider — a firm authorised under MiCA to provide one or more of the ten listed crypto-asset services in the EU. One home-state authorisation covers the whole Union. giving personal recommendations or running client portfolios on mandate.
The operating core plus the client-conduct layer: suitability, the periodic statement, and the competence floor for your people.
Title V, plus Art 81's advice and portfolio-management duties
what the application contains
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/305 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the application's forms and templates
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/306 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗complaints handling machinery
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/294 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the records behind every recommendation
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1140 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗conflicts — sharpest where advice meets own inventory
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1142 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗suitability and the periodic statement
ESMA Guidelines on certain aspects of the suitability requirements under MiCA (ESMA35-1872330276-2031; third-package, Art 81(15)) · translated and applying — comply-or-explain running · verified 2026-08-27 · Read the text ↗the competence floor for advising staff — watch its clock
ESMA Guidelines for the criteria on the assessment of knowledge and competence under MiCA (final report ESMA35-1872330276-2380) · issued guidelines — comply-or-explain, binding authorities rather than firms · verified 2026-08-27 · Read the text ↗
You offer a Title II tokenAn offeror of a crypto-asset that is neither ARTAsset-referenced token — a crypto-asset claiming to hold a stable value by referencing anything other than exactly one official currency: a basket, gold, another asset. MiCA checks e-money tokens first; ART is the stablecoin residual (Title III). nor EMTE-money token — a crypto-asset claiming a stable value by referencing exactly one official currency, such as the euro. Only credit institutions and e-money institutions may issue them (MiCA Title IV). — the white-paper-and-conduct regime.
The sort comes first, then the disclosure machinery; check the Art 4 exemptions before drafting anything.
Title II — the offer duties and their exemptions
the sort that decides Title II is even your regime
ESMA Guidelines on the conditions and criteria for the qualification of crypto-assets as financial instruments (ESMA75-453128700-1323) · issued guidelines — comply-or-explain, binding authorities rather than firms · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the white paperThe disclosure document MiCA requires before most crypto-assets are offered to the public or admitted to trading — contents prescribed, liability attached, notified to the regulator.'s machine-readable format
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2984 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the classification data the tags must carry
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/421 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the systems-and-security floor addressed to your side
ESMA Guidelines on the maintenance of systems and security access protocols, Art 14(1)(d) (ESMA75-223375936-6132; final report ESMA75-223375936-6089) · translated and applying — comply-or-explain running · verified 2026-08-27 · Read the text ↗
You issue an e-money tokenA credit institution or e-money institution behind a single-currency token — nobody else may be.
Title IV plus the borrowed machinery: e-money law underneath, and Title III's recovery-and-redemption chapter mutatis mutandisApplied with the necessary changes — a legal instruction to reuse one set of rules in a second context, adjusting only what the new context requires. Art 55 uses it to hand Title III's recovery-and-redemption chapter to EMT issuers..
Title IV — issuer restriction, par issuance and redemption, the white-paper notification
the white paperThe disclosure document MiCA requires before most crypto-assets are offered to the public or admitted to trading — contents prescribed, liability attached, notified to the regulator.'s format
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2984 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the classification data
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/421 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗recovery planning — borrowed through Art 55
EBA Guidelines on recovery plans under Articles 46 and 55 of MiCA (EBA/GL/2024/07) · issued guidelines — comply-or-explain, binding authorities rather than firms · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the orderly wind-down plan and its trigger
EBA Guidelines on redemption plans under Articles 47 and 55 of MiCA (EBA/GL/2024/13) · issued guidelines — comply-or-explain, binding authorities rather than firms · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the liquidity management policy, where a reserve is held
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1264 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the live market you are joining, at a dated snapshot
ESMA register of EMT white papers - CSV snapshot, 24 Aug 2026 · issued guidelines — comply-or-explain, binding authorities rather than firms · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗
You issue an asset-referenced tokenThe bespoke Title III authorisation — the fullest stack in the regime, and at the snapshot date an empty category.
The whole issuer-operating group applies; start with the application and the reserve.
Title III end to end — authorisation, own fundsThe firm's own capital — the money that absorbs losses before anyone else's. MiCA sets floors and can require more., reserve, redemption, significance
what the ARTAsset-referenced token — a crypto-asset claiming to hold a stable value by referencing anything other than exactly one official currency: a basket, gold, another asset. MiCA checks e-money tokens first; ART is the stablecoin residual (Title III). authorisation application contains
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1125 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗when own funds must rise, and the stress-testing programme
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/415 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the reserve's liquidity management policy
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1264 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the governance arrangements' minimum content
EBA Guidelines on the minimum content of the governance arrangements for issuers of ARTs (EBA/GL/2024/06) · issued guidelines — comply-or-explain, binding authorities rather than firms · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the recovery plan and its indicators
EBA Guidelines on recovery plans under Articles 46 and 55 of MiCA (EBA/GL/2024/07) · issued guidelines — comply-or-explain, binding authorities rather than firms · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the redemption plan and its trigger
EBA Guidelines on redemption plans under Articles 47 and 55 of MiCA (EBA/GL/2024/13) · issued guidelines — comply-or-explain, binding authorities rather than firms · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the stress-test scenarios' common parameters
EBA Guidelines on liquidity stress testing, common reference parameters, Art 45(4) MiCA (EBA/GL/2024/08) · issued guidelines — comply-or-explain, binding authorities rather than firms · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗the significance criteria, as specified
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1506 · applicable — this binds · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗how supervision transfers to the EBAThe European Banking Authority — ESMA's banking-side sibling, responsible for MiCA's stablecoin rulebook. It drafts; the Commission adopts.
EBA Decision on the classification of ARTs and EMTs as significant and the transfer of supervision (EBA/DC/558) · issued guidelines — comply-or-explain, binding authorities rather than firms · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗
You serve EU clients from outsideA third-country firm with EU clients and no EU authorisation — the perimeter archetype.
One article and one set of guidelinesA supervisory authority's published position on how rules should be applied. EU guidelines bind authorities on a comply-or-explain basis — they are not themselves the law. decide everything; the registers are where your clients will check you.
Article 61 — the exemption and its self-closing doors
both limbs, as issued: what counts as solicitation, and how supervisors detect it
ESMA Guidelines on reverse solicitation under MiCA (ESMA35-1872330276-2030; final report ESMA35-1872330276-1899) · translated and applying — comply-or-explain running · verified 2026-08-27 · Read the text ↗where a firm on the wrong side of the line can end up, at a dated snapshot
ESMA register of non-compliant entities - CSV snapshot, 24 Aug 2026 · issued guidelines — comply-or-explain, binding authorities rather than firms · verified 2026-08-26 · Read the text ↗
So what— So what — write the firm’s own perimeter memo: the hats it wears, the services it actually performs against the list of ten, the door it entered by, and every EU touchpoint of any non-EU affiliate. One page, dated, refreshed when the business changes. The regulator’s first question is always some version of this page.
As at — instrument lifecycle stages verified 2026-08-26 to 2026-08-27, per instrument (each citation above shows its own date); register figures are from the dated snapshots of 24 August 2026. The service list, entry doors, exemptions and Article 61 re-read in the held Regulation text and the held issued guidelines for this section.