MiCA Review: EU Targets Tokenized Stocks, Stablecoins
A week after MiCA took full effect, the EU is already drafting a review of tokenized stocks, third-country stablecoins, and its empty ART regime.
A review before the ink dries
MiCA went fully live across all 27 member states on July 1. Seven days later, the European Commission is already gathering input for a revision, with a September 30 deadline. Reopening a rulebook this fast isn't an accident. The market has outrun the legislation since the text was drafted.
Tokenized stocks break the perimeter
The real pressure point is onchain equities. The tokenized-securities market now sits near $2.16 billion and grew almost 45% in a single month. MiCA doesn't cover it: tokenized stocks fall under legacy EU securities law, not the crypto regime. When a token behaves like a crypto-asset technically but tracks a share economically, you get exactly the grey zone regulators dread. The second lever is stablecoin issuers domiciled outside the EU whose tokens circulate inside it without sitting fully under European supervision.
The one-week scorecard is mixed
Operationally, MiCA is running better than the reform signal suggests. Per Circle's Patrick Hansen, there are now 270-plus regulated CASPs, alongside 21 EMT issuers running 35 e-money tokens across eight currencies, 19 euro-denominated and nine in dollars. France leads with six licensed issuers, Malta fields two, Germany one. That's working infrastructure, but a thin one.
The weak spots are structural. Among the 50 largest stablecoins, only USDC, USDG, and EURC are MiCA-compliant, so global dollar liquidity stays outside the tent. And the ART bucket for basket- or commodity-backed tokens remains completely empty more than two years after the stablecoin rules took effect: not a single approved asset-referenced token.
The trade
The timing stings for the industry. Firms are still implementing the current rules, and the next round is already looming. Prices won't move on this, but the direction is set. Hold euro stablecoins and you're on the right side of the regime; lean on non-compliant dollar tokens or tokenized equities and expect fresh strings attached. Meanwhile France and Malta are hardening their lead as stablecoin hubs, an edge that's already showing up in the license count. For active traders, the issuer map is worth watching: where the license sits is where the deepest regulated liquidity will pool. The next MiCA round decides whether the EU pulls in global dollar capital or pushes it to the perimeter.