crypto asset

In a few months, all MiCAR provisions will be legally effective. This also includes the new rules on the prevention and prohibition of market abuse and insider trading. But which market participants must comply with the new strict obligations?

ESMA has been tasked with providing guidelines by the end of the year to facilitate the legal assessment of the legal nature of tokens as crypto assets under MiCAR and as financial instruments under MiFID2. ESMA has already published an initial draft of the guidelines.

In the future, anyone wishing to execute orders for crypto assets for clients in the EU will require a MiCAR license to do so. However, MiCAR provides for further regulatory obligations for crypto service providers in addition to the licensing requirement.

Securing the crypto assets of clients is essential for regulated crypto custody providers. Together with the Frankfurt-based xMarkets Consulting FIN LAW publishes a paper on the most important aspects.

As commercial enterprises, crypto custodians are also exposed to the risk of becoming insolvent. But what happens to the safeguarded crypto assets of clients in the event of a crypto custody service provider’s insolvency?

Systematic internalisers act outside of regulated trading venues on the capital markets and are therefore subject to additional supervisory obligations. Is this also true for OTC-traders of crypto assets?

Stablecoins offer a stable alternative in the extremely volatile crypto market. They are therefore suited as an alternative means of payment and moreover to preserve value in the crypto market. But are they also qualified as financial instruments as traditional cryptocurrencies are?

Crypto lending has become a popular way to generate passive income. As a matter of fact, service providers begin to create business models in such settings. But can these service providers be subject to authorization pursuant to German regulatory law?

Most probably the German legislator did not expect the following when introducing crypto assets as financial instruments: On the 9th of June 2021, the small Latin American country of El Salvador passed a new legislation that will declare Bitcoin its unrestricted, domestic legal tender. As of the new legislation will come into effect, payments made […]

The probably most essential innovation of blockchain technology is the enabling of transactions of digital assets between two parties without the need to involve a central intermediary like a bank or any other payment service provider as a settlement institution. Cryptocurrencies exist purely virtual and can be digitally transferred between the payer and the payee. […]

When the European legislator decided to introduce the first piece of codified regulation for the crypto market with the fifth AML directive, he also decided to use the term virtual currencies to describe Bitcoin, Litecoin and comparable, blockchain-based units of value. The German legislator on the other hand did not implement the term virtual currency […]

When it comes to providing their services to customers, financial service providers have traditionally been strictly regulated. Since the implementation of the second European Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) in 2018, the obligations of securities service providers became even more extensive. In Germany, the federal Securities Trading Act (WpHG) regulates how securities service […]