Malta’s cryptocurrency licensing course of has come underneath scrutiny from the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), Europe’s main supervisory physique overseeing the Markets in Crypto-Property Regulation (MiCA).
The ESMA on Thursday released a assessment on the authorization strategy of crypto asset service suppliers (CASPs) by Malta’s Monetary Companies Authority (MFSA), highlighting a number of shortfalls and proposing a set of suggestions.
Regardless of saying the MFSA met sure expectations in supervisory setup and staffing, the EU watchdog stated the Maltese authorities solely “partially met expectations” within the authorization course of for an unnamed CASP.
Following the assessment, the ESMA’s advert hoc Peer Overview Committee (PRC) really useful that MFSA “assess materials points that both had been nonetheless pending on the date of the authorization or that haven’t been adequately thought-about on the authorization stage.”
Malta assessment launched in April
The report comes over a 12 months after the MiCA framework came into force on June 29, 2024, turning into a serious milestone within the EU’s strategy to regulating digital property.
Since MiCA is aimed toward offering a unified and consistent legal framework for crypto within the EU, the regulator highlighted that MiCA’s authorization strategy applies to all Nationwide Competent Authorities (NCAs).
In December 2024, the European Banking Authority’s Board of Supervisors (BoS), the company’s principal decision-making physique, agreed on the adoption of a coordinated strategy for CASPs authorizations.
“Following a sequence of occasions, the BoS of ESMA determined, in April 2025, to launch a peer assessment on the authorization and early supervision of a CASP by the Malta Monetary Companies Authority,” the report famous, including:
“Though the peer assessment focused one NCA, nonetheless, it goals to foster supervisory convergence and enhance the supervisory practices of all NCAs, at a time when consistency throughout NCAs in authorization and setting supervisory expectations is essential.”
MFSA’s authorization falls wanting expectations
The ESMA’s PRC, the committee that carried out the peer assessment course of into MFSA, reported that MFSA has constructed a “good stage of experience on this sector and has enough supervisory assets for CASP authorizations and supervision.”
PRC’s assessment involved three principal areas: the supervisory settings and assets, the authorization course of and the supervisory assessment and use of ample powers.
Whereas absolutely assembly the supervisory settings necessities and largely assembly the supervisory assessment guidelines, the report stated the MFSA has solely “partially met expectations” related to the “authorization of the precise CASP.”
Malta’s MFSA “wants to watch carefully the expansion in authorization purposes” and establish and want to regulate supervisory practices in a well timed method, the PRC acknowledged.
Associated: Bybit, OKX expand crypto services in Europe under MiCA
It reiterated that each one the EU state NCAs have to think about this challenge and strictly observe the requirements:
“Because of the novelty and nature of those sort of entities in addition to the inherent dangers of their enterprise mannequin, the PRC recommends to all NCAs, at the moment within the strategy of authorising CASPs, to pay explicit consideration to sure features of the authorization.”
4 MiCA CASPs licensed by MFSA
For the reason that ESMA didn’t disclose the title of the CASP in query of the MFSA’s authorization misstep, it’s unclear whether or not the PRC’s advice to evaluate the difficulty would affect any of the issued licenses.
“It’s onerous to remark with out understanding precisely what the unresolved points had been,” XReg Consulting accomplice Nathan Catania instructed Cointelegraph.
“I wouldn’t count on any revocation or re-evaluation based mostly on the report,” he acknowledged.
According to the MFSA register of licensed CASPs working underneath MiCA, there are at the moment 4 registered firms: BP23, buying and selling as Bitpanda; Foris Dax, buying and selling as Crypto.com; Okcoin Europe, buying and selling as OKX; and Zillion Bits, buying and selling as ZBX.
In April, Malta’s Monetary Intelligence Evaluation Unit fined Okcoin Europe $1.2 million after detecting sure violations courting again to 2023. The penalty got here quickly after the MFSA granted a MiCA license to OKX in January 2025.
Cointelegraph approached the ESMA and the MFSA for remark relating to the assessment’s potential affect on the MiCA-licensed firms in Malta, however didn’t obtain a response by publication.
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