The European Securities and Markets Authority (Esma) is seeking changes to the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) to address crypto services that have emerged since the framework was drafted, according to a report by Funds Europe.

The initiative marks the first substantive signal from the Paris-based regulator that it intends to adapt the EU's crypto rulebook to product categories and service models that did not fit neatly into MiCA's original licensing perimeter. MiCA, which entered into full application for crypto-asset service providers across the EU in December 2024, established a passporting regime for issuers of asset-referenced tokens and e-money tokens and for CASPs authorised in any member state.

Esma's move reflects a familiar pattern in financial regulation: statutory frameworks age faster than the markets they govern. Since MiCA's text was finalised in 2022 and published in 2023, the crypto services market has continued to evolve, and the regulator now appears set to close perceived gaps between the activities the regulation explicitly names and the activities firms actually offer.

The specifics of which services Esma wants brought into scope were not detailed in the headline report. Market participants will be watching for technical advice or a formal consultation paper that names the categories concerned — candidates routinely discussed by EU legal practitioners include lending, staking arrangements, and forms of decentralised service delivery that sit outside the current CASP definition.

For authorised crypto-asset service providers, any expansion of MiCA's scope carries direct operational consequences. Firms holding a CASP licence could face additional conduct requirements, prudential buffers or disclosure obligations if their service lines are reclassified or extended. For issuers, changes to the regulation's provisions could alter the compliance perimeter around token issuance and marketing across the 27-member bloc.

Esma's role in the process is procedural as well as substantive. The agency provides technical advice to the European Commission and drafts regulatory technical standards, but amendments to MiCA itself require legislative action by the Commission and the co-legislators. An Esma request for changes therefore starts a process rather than concluding one, and the timeline for any actual amendment runs through Brussels' ordinary legislative machinery.

The review also has a competitive dimension. The EU adopted MiCA partly to prevent regulatory arbitrage inside the single market and to set a global benchmark. If new service models allow firms to operate meaningfully outside the framework while licensed competitors bear its costs, the level playing field MiCA was designed to create erodes — a concern Esma has raised in earlier communications on supervision and authorisation practices.

National competent authorities, which process CASP authorisations and conduct day-to-day supervision, will have to implement whatever changes emerge. Their capacity constraints have already been a friction point in the authorisation pipeline, with some jurisdictions processing applications faster than others ahead of the December 2024 deadline and the transition periods that followed for firms operating under national regimes.

Stakeholders should expect Esma to publish its proposed changes and open a consultation before any technical advice goes to the Commission. That consultation window will be the industry's principal opportunity to shape which emerging services enter MiCA's scope and on what terms.