Malta’s cryptocurrency licensing course of has come below scrutiny from the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), Europe’s main supervisory physique overseeing the Markets in Crypto-Belongings Regulation (MiCA).
The ESMA on Thursday released a assessment on the authorization strategy of crypto asset service suppliers (CASPs) by Malta’s Monetary Companies Authority (MFSA), highlighting a number of shortfalls and proposing a set of suggestions.
Regardless of saying the MFSA met sure expectations in supervisory setup and staffing, the EU watchdog stated the Maltese authorities solely “partially met expectations” within the authorization course of for an unnamed CASP.
Following the assessment, the ESMA’s advert hoc Peer Evaluation Committee (PRC) really useful that MFSA “assess materials points that both have been nonetheless pending on the date of the authorization or that haven’t been adequately thought of on the authorization stage.”
Malta assessment launched in April
The report comes over a yr after the MiCA framework came into force on June 29, 2024, turning into a serious milestone within the EU’s method to regulating digital property.
Since MiCA is geared toward offering a unified and consistent legal framework for crypto within the EU, the regulator highlighted that MiCA’s authorization method applies to all Nationwide Competent Authorities (NCAs).
In December 2024, the European Banking Authority’s Board of Supervisors (BoS), the company’s principal decision-making physique, agreed on the adoption of a coordinated method for CASPs authorizations.
“Following a collection of occasions, the BoS of ESMA determined, in April 2025, to launch a peer assessment on the authorization and early supervision of a CASP by the Malta Monetary Companies Authority,” the report famous, including:
“Though the peer assessment focused one NCA, nonetheless, it goals to foster supervisory convergence and enhance the supervisory practices of all NCAs, at a time when consistency throughout NCAs in authorization and setting supervisory expectations is vital.”
MFSA’s authorization falls wanting expectations
The ESMA’s PRC, the committee that performed the peer assessment course of into MFSA, reported that MFSA has constructed a “good stage of experience on this sector and has ample supervisory assets for CASP authorizations and supervision.”
PRC’s assessment involved three principal areas: the supervisory settings and assets, the authorization course of and the supervisory assessment and use of satisfactory powers.
Whereas totally assembly the supervisory settings necessities and largely assembly the supervisory assessment guidelines, the report stated the MFSA has solely “partially met expectations” related to the “authorization of the precise CASP.”
Malta’s MFSA “wants to observe intently the expansion in authorization purposes” and establish and want to regulate supervisory practices in a well timed method, the PRC said.
Associated: Bybit, OKX expand crypto services in Europe under MiCA
It reiterated that each one the EU state NCAs have to contemplate this challenge and strictly comply with the requirements:
“Because of the novelty and nature of those kind of entities in addition to the inherent dangers of their enterprise mannequin, the PRC recommends to all NCAs, at the moment within the strategy of authorising CASPs, to pay specific consideration to sure features of the authorization.”
4 MiCA CASPs licensed by MFSA
Because the ESMA didn’t disclose the identify of the CASP in query of the MFSA’s authorization misstep, it’s unclear whether or not the PRC’s advice to evaluate the difficulty would impression any of the issued licenses.
“It’s arduous to remark with out realizing precisely what the unresolved points have been,” XReg Consulting companion Nathan Catania advised Cointelegraph.
“I wouldn’t count on any revocation or re-evaluation primarily based on the report,” he said.
According to the MFSA register of licensed CASPs working below MiCA, there are at the moment 4 registered firms: BP23, buying and selling as Bitpanda; Foris Dax, buying and selling as Crypto.com; Okcoin Europe, buying and selling as OKX; and Zillion Bits, buying and selling as ZBX.
In April, Malta’s Monetary Intelligence Evaluation Unit fined Okcoin Europe $1.2 million after detecting sure violations relationship again to 2023. The penalty got here quickly after the MFSA granted a MiCA license to OKX in January 2025.
Cointelegraph approached the ESMA and the MFSA for remark concerning the assessment’s potential impression on the MiCA-licensed firms in Malta, however didn’t obtain a response by publication.
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