Malta’s cryptocurrency licensing course of has come beneath scrutiny from the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), Europe’s major supervisory physique overseeing the Markets in Crypto-Property Regulation (MiCA).
The ESMA on Thursday launched a evaluation on the authorization means of crypto asset service suppliers (CASPs) by Malta’s Monetary Providers 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 evaluation, the ESMA’s advert hoc Peer Evaluation Committee (PRC) really helpful that MFSA “assess materials points that both have been nonetheless pending on the date of the authorization or that haven’t been adequately thought-about on the authorization stage.”
Malta evaluation launched in April
The report comes over a 12 months after the MiCA framework got here into power on June 29, 2024, changing into a significant milestone within the EU’s method to regulating digital belongings.
Since MiCA is aimed toward offering a unified and constant authorized framework for crypto within the EU, the regulator highlighted that MiCA’s authorization method applies to all Nationwide Competent Authorities (NCAs).
In December 2024, the European Banking Authority’s Board of Supervisors (BoS), the company’s most important decision-making physique, agreed on the adoption of a coordinated method for CASPs authorizations.
“Following a collection of occasions, the BoS of ESMA determined, in April 2025, to launch a peer evaluation on the authorization and early supervision of a CASP by the Malta Monetary Providers Authority,” the report famous, including:
“Though the peer evaluation 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 evaluation course of into MFSA, reported that MFSA has constructed a “good degree of experience on this sector and has adequate supervisory assets for CASP authorizations and supervision.”
PRC’s evaluation involved three most important areas: the supervisory settings and assets, the authorization course of and the supervisory evaluation and use of satisfactory powers.
Whereas totally assembly the supervisory settings necessities and largely assembly the supervisory evaluation guidelines, the report stated the MFSA has solely “partially met expectations” related to the “authorization of the particular CASP.”
Malta’s MFSA “wants to observe intently the expansion in authorization purposes” and determine and wish to regulate supervisory practices in a well timed method, the PRC said.
Associated: Bybit, OKX develop crypto providers in Europe beneath MiCA
It reiterated that each one the EU state NCAs have to contemplate this concern and strictly comply with the requirements:
“As a result of novelty and nature of those kind of entities in addition to the inherent dangers of their enterprise mannequin, the PRC recommends to all NCAs, at the moment within the means of authorising CASPs, to pay explicit consideration to sure points 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 impression any of the issued licenses.
“It’s laborious to remark with out figuring out precisely what the unresolved points have been,” XReg Consulting companion Nathan Catania advised Cointelegraph.
“I wouldn’t anticipate any revocation or re-evaluation primarily based on the report,” he said.
In line with the MFSA register of licensed CASPs working beneath MiCA, there are at the moment 4 registered corporations: 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 relationship 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 evaluation’s potential impression on the MiCA-licensed corporations in Malta, however didn’t obtain a response by publication.
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