The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) issued a supervisory opinion on October 8 calling for services related to stablecoins that do not meet the requirements of the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) to be discontinued. It covers asset-referenced tokens (ARTs) and e-money tokens (EMTs) that do not meet the requirements for lawful public offering or admission to trading in the EU.
ESMA said crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) authorized under MiCA must not provide EU clients with related services including trading, exchange, execution of orders, custody, transfer and advice. The opinion sets supervisory expectations for national competent authorities (NCAs) to apply existing MiCA obligations consistently.
In a January 2025 statement, ESMA had said that custody and transfer alone could continue. The new opinion brings those services within supervisory expectations and states that regulators may temporarily allow only services necessary to wind down existing holdings. It concluded that risk warnings or disclosures by service providers cannot substitute for the redemption rights, reserve assets and asset-protection safeguards required at issuance.
ESMA said national regulators should require remaining holdings and related services to be wound down as soon as possible and no later than three months from the publication of the opinion. Sales, conversions, withdrawals, transfers and custody needed to prevent customer harm may qualify for temporary exceptions, but new purchases, promotions and ongoing trading services do not fall within that scope.
The opinion did not identify specific tokens. CoinDesk cited USDT and PYUSD as examples and calculated the three-month deadline as January 8, 2027. The materials did not provide country-specific implementation schedules or service termination dates for individual providers.