The Specific MiCA Rules That Are Killing Euro Stablecoins — And What the Report Wants Changed

[cryptobro]

The Blockchain for Europe report does not call for a wholesale rewrite of MiCA — it identifies specific rules that are creating competitive disadvantages for euro stablecoins and proposes targeted reforms to address each one. The remuneration ban is the most discussed issue, but the reserve requirements may be equally damaging in practice. MiCA currently requires that at least 30% of euro EMT reserves be held as bank deposits, rising to 60% for significant issuers — a requirement the report's authors describe as unique among major stablecoin regulatory frameworks globally. No comparable jurisdiction imposes this level of mandatory bank deposit concentration, and the authors argue it unnecessarily restricts the asset mix available to euro stablecoin issuers while increasing their exposure to counterparty risk.

The proposed reforms center on three areas. First, replacing rigid reserve thresholds with a principle-based approach aligned with the EU's existing Liquidity Coverage Ratio framework, allowing issuers to hold a broader mix of high-quality liquid euro assets. Second, revisiting the remuneration ban to reduce the competitive gap with dollar stablecoins that benefit from DeFi lending pool yields without any issuer-paid interest. Third, giving large stablecoin issuers carefully limited access to central bank settlement accounts during periods of severe market stress — a backstop that would enhance stability without creating permanent structural dependencies. The broader argument is that MiCA's current design was built for a risk management objective that it has achieved, but at the cost of making euro stablecoins commercially unviable, and targeted adjustments can address the competitive gap without dismantling the safety architecture.

[cryptoenthusiast]

The 30–60% mandatory bank deposit concentration requirement being unique globally is the reserve structure argument that should be dominating the reform debate — it's not just restrictive, it creates exactly the counterparty concentration risk MiCA was designed to prevent.