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Checklist · Article 59

Am I a CASP? A MiCA scope self-assessment

A plain self-check for founders unsure whether MiCA applies to them. Work through the EU-clients test, whether your token is even a crypto-asset, and the ten regulated services, including the traps around non-custodial, NFT, and DeFi models.

Read this first

MiCA catches firms by what they do, not what they call themselves. This walks the same questions a regulator would. It is a diagnostic, not legal advice; the grey areas below are exactly where you should take advice.

Test 1 - Are you serving clients in the EU?

  • Do you provide services to clients located in the EU, or actively market to them? If yes, MiCA is in play.
  • No EU clients and no EU marketing usually means no MiCA, though that can change as you grow.
  • Relying on EU users finding you anyway? That is reverse solicitation, a narrow exemption, not a strategy. See Article 61.

Test 2 - Is the thing a crypto-asset in scope?

  • In scope: most fungible crypto-assets, including utility tokens, plus ARTs and EMTs under their own titles.
  • Out, or under a different regime: instruments that qualify as MiFID financial instruments, deposits, and genuinely unique, non-fungible NFTs.
  • Trap: an NFT collection where tokens are interchangeable, or fractionalised NFTs, are treated as in scope on substance, not on the “NFT” label.

Test 3 - Do your activities map to the ten services?

Authorisation is triggered by providing any of these for clients, under Article 59:

  • Custody and administration of crypto-assets on behalf of clients
  • Operating a trading platform
  • Exchange of crypto-assets for funds, or for other crypto-assets
  • Execution of orders on behalf of clients
  • Placing crypto-assets
  • Reception and transmission of orders
  • Advice on crypto-assets
  • Portfolio management of crypto-assets
  • Transfer services for crypto-assets on behalf of clients
  • Providing crypto-assets in exchange for funds or other crypto-assets

The edge cases that catch people out

Non-custodial

Not holding keys does not put you out of scope. Operating an exchange, routing orders, or providing transfer or advisory services can make you a CASP without custody.

Staking and lending

Pooling, discretionary management, or holding client assets to stake pulls in custody and portfolio-management rules. Regulators have leaned toward treating retail-facing staking as in scope.

DeFi

Only genuinely decentralised protocols with no identifiable intermediary sit outside. A team, treasury, admin key, or frontend operator is who the regulator looks at.

Issuing vs servicing

Issuing a token can trigger white-paper or ART/EMT obligations; providing services on tokens triggers CASP authorisation. You can be subject to both.

If you are in scope

Useful next pages