Bitcoin · Bitcoin.com News
Cryptocurrency futures, even where physically settled in BTC or ETH
Compiled by KHAO Editorial — aggregated from 1 source. See llms.txt for citation guidance.
◌ Single Source
Operating a trading platform for such instruments requires authorization as a regulated market, multilateral trading facility (MTF), or organized trading facility (OTF) under MiFID II.
Key facts
- Article 2(4) of MiCA explicitly excludes from its scope crypto-assets that qualify as financial instruments under Directive 2014/65/EU (MiFID II), deposits, funds as defined under the Payment
- This requires either a payment institution license or an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license under Directive (EU) 2015/2366 (PSD2), rather than a Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP)
- Recital 97 of MiCA addresses this directly, noting that derivatives qualifying as financial instruments under MiFID II and whose underlying asset is a crypto-asset are subject to Regulation 596/2014
- MiCA authorizes the transfer of crypto-assets on behalf of clients, defined in Article 3(1)(26) as “providing services of transfer, on behalf of a natural or legal person, of crypto-assets from one distributed ledger address or account to another
Summary
Most founders pursuing a MiCA license assume they are solving their EU regulatory problem. There is a version of the MiCA authorization process that founders talk about as if it ends the moment the license arrives. That framing misreads what MiCA authorizes. A Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) license grants permission to provide specific crypto-asset services, defined in detail in the regulation. This tenth installment of MiCA Decoded maps that gap precisely, service by service. The assumption is understandable. Its scope extends to custody, exchange, execution, routing, advice, and portfolio management.