On the 5^th October 2023, the European Securities and Markets Authority (“ESMA”) published a second Consultation Paper on Technical Standards applicable under the Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (“MiCAR”).

Following the first Consultation Paper on Technical Standards published in earlier July of this year, ESMA published this second Consultation Paper after initially gathering a better understanding of the market and the player’s activities in the crypto asset market.

This Consultation Paper is aimed to be a major step towards the EU’s implementation of MiCAR and is aimed to address:

• Sustainability indicators for distributed ledger technologies, whereby indicators on the adverse impacts on climate, environment and certain specific factors together with the principle of proportionality are taken into account;

• Appropriate public disclosure of inside information, including relative technical means for disclosure;

• Technical requirements for Whitepapers, including their machine readability, and a register of white papers, whereby data shall be easy to identify, recognise, and extract.

• Trade transparency measures such as the offering of pre- and post- trade data to the public; and

• Business continuity requirement for the performance of Crypto Asset Service Provider (“CASP”) services and record-keeping obligations of such CASPs, including the content and format of order book records.

Feedback on this Consultation Paper may be submitted to the ESMA by the 14 December 2023. Moving forward, a third Consultation Paper on MiCAR Technical Standards is expected to be issued in Q1 of 2024.

It is expected that once such third consultation process comes to its end, a final report and relative technical standards are to be submitted to the European Commission for endorsement, which endorsement is currently envisaged by June 2024.

For more information and assistance on Fintech Law, kindly contact Dr Ian Gauci, Dr Cherise Abela Grech and Dr Terence Cassar.