ESMA’s 30 September recommendations for the MiCA review show how quickly crypto supervision is moving beyond the original exchange and custody perimeter.

The publication addresses marketing by influencers and third parties, cost transparency, staking, lending, borrowing, non-compliant stablecoins, token classification and access to DeFi protocols. It also asks for clearer criteria to decide when an activity is genuinely decentralised.

The legal status matters. These are recommendations submitted through the European Commission’s review process, not final rules. Still, they show the questions regulators are asking and the product facts that teams need to document now.

Start with function, not branding.

A platform can call itself non-custodial, a protocol interface or a software gateway. The practical review still asks:

1. Who controls the interface and can change what users see?
2. Who routes transactions, orders, fees or rewards?

3. Who controls admin keys, upgrades, allowlists or emergency actions?

4. Does the business hold assets, transmit value, arrange trades or market products to users?

5. Which users and jurisdictions does the service actively target?

That functional map is more useful than memorising a list of regulator names. It reveals where custody, exchange, transfer, issuance, promotion, stablecoin, market integrity and consumer protection obligations may begin.

It also improves security analysis. A service that claims decentralisation while one team controls the frontend, fees, privileged contracts and emergency powers has a different risk profile from software that users can access through several independent interfaces without one party controlling execution.

TokenToolHub’s worldwide regulatory guide compares the recurring control pillars across regions and explains how to map a product before applying jurisdiction-specific rules.

https://tokentoolhub.com/cryptocurrency-regulatory-approaches-worldwide/

#crypto #blockchain #Web3 #MiCA #defi