One Loosens, One Tightens: The ECB and EBA Are Pulling MiCA in Two Directions

Days before the EU’s MiCA targeted consultation closes on September 30, the European System of Central Banks wants to scrap the stablecoin bank-deposit reserve requirement while the EBA wants to extend the rules into crypto lending and DeFi.

The ESCB: Trading the 30%-60% Bank-Deposit Rule for a “Maturity Threshold”

On September 22, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the central banks of all 27 EU member states, acting under the banner of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB), submitted their assessment of the MiCA targeted consultation to the European Commission. The filing landed eight days before the consultation closes on September 30 and is the most consequential submission made public so far.

The ESCB’s core proposal is to delete the MiCA requirement that stablecoin issuers hold part of their reserves in commercial bank deposits. Under current rules, issuers of e-money tokens (EMT) and asset-referenced tokens (ART) must hold at least 30% of reserves as bank deposits, a share that rises to 60% for tokens classified as significant. The ESCB recommends replacing this with liquidity-based requirements keyed to maturity: a share of reserve assets would have to mature within one or five working days, with overnight reverse repos and short-dated sovereign bonds named as acceptable alternatives.

The real-world lesson behind this argument is the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) crisis of March 2023: after Circle disclosed that roughly $3.3 billion of USDC reserves sat at SVB, USDC briefly de-pegged. The ESCB argues that a fixed deposit quota ties issuers to individual credit institutions, and that during a redemption run an issuer must quickly pull deposits, amplifying bank liquidity stress while forcing the stablecoin structure to carry the very banking counterparty risk it was designed to avoid. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino has warned about the systemic risk of this clause since 2024: in an October 2024 interview he estimated that a stablecoin with EUR 10 billion in reserves, holding 60% at a bank, would see 90% of that lent out, leaving only EUR 600 million truly available. Ardoino has also said this clause is why Tether refused an EU licence.

The ESCB did not stop at the reserve clause. It also backs extending the prohibition on paying remuneration from MiCA-covered services to lending, staking and other arrangements that replicate the economics of a deposit, and calls for a definition of MiCA’s “fully decentralised” exemption, which has never been defined while research suggests full decentralisation is rarely achieved in practice. The ESCB also supports moving CASP licensing and supervision from national competent authorities to ESMA, and states that supervisors face material challenges enforcing MiCA against firms that continue to reach EU customers from outside the bloc without authorisation.

The EBA: Putting Crypto Lending and DeFi Access Into MiCA’s Service List

On September 24, the European Banking Authority (EBA) submitted its formal position on the Commission’s MiCA targeted consultation (86 questions, including Section 4.2 covering DeFi and staking). Joint research by the EBA and ESMA found that intermediated crypto borrowing and lending already operate in at least 16 member states, yet fall entirely outside MiCA’s list of regulated services, because MiCA deliberately excluded lending and borrowing by design, with Recital 94 leaving the feasibility and necessity assessment to a later review.

The EBA recommends that the Commission carry out a cost-benefit analysis weighing two legislative paths: adding the intermediation of crypto borrowing and lending directly to the CASP regulated services, or placing separate obligations on licensed firms that help clients access DeFi lending protocols. Among the specific tools, the EBA proposes suitability tests before retail users enter credit contracts, leverage caps for some or all users, disclosure requirements covering margin maintenance, collateral liquidation policies and direct counterparty risk, and a certification regime for DeFi lending protocols integrated into regulated client services. The EBA also proposes prohibiting loans backed by asset-referenced or e-money tokens that lack authorisation under MiCA Title III or IV.

The EBA’s position is clearly misaligned with the ESCB’s in direction: the central banks want to strip out one specific reserve safeguard, while the EBA wants to stack caps and disclosure onto adjacent areas. Both point to the same pressure, that MiCA, fully applicable since December 2024, has already hit its limits. The EBA singled out third-country multi-issuer stablecoin schemes, in which an EU entity and a non-EU entity issue the same interchangeable token while reserves are split across jurisdictions, rating these schemes a “significant to very significant” risk and recommending that, if they remain permitted, they sit under a dedicated regime with an equivalence baseline for EU market access and additional crisis-management powers for EU supervisors.

One Market, Two Misaligned Policy Signals

Laid side by side, the two submissions show EU crypto regulation facing a “loosen” and a “tighten” demand at the same time. The numbers best capture the market’s real state: as of September 1, 2026, only 39 e-money tokens had been authorised under MiCA while the number of authorised asset-referenced tokens was zero; only three of the top 50 stablecoins meet EU rules. Yet crypto lending genuinely operates in at least 16 member states. The gap between an empty regulatory list and an already-existing market is exactly why the EBA and the ESCB acted in the same window.

The timeline matters as much. The Commission opened this targeted consultation on May 20, and the deadline was extended from the original August 31 to September 30. Under Article 140 of MiCA, the Commission must deliver a report on the regulation’s application by June 30, 2027, potentially accompanied by a legislative proposal. Every response submitted before September 30 feeds the next version of the EU crypto rulebook, while no substantive rule takes effect on that day itself.

The consultation is surrounded by a chain of parallel moves. On September 21, the Eurosystem launched Pontes, a platform that lets eligible banks and market infrastructure operators settle wholesale tokenised-asset transactions in central bank money, with 13 market participants onboarded, including Deutsche Bank, Santander, Societe Generale and the European Investment Bank. That same day, the ECB announced it would invest part of its own funds in tokenised securities settled via Pontes. Launching a central-bank settlement infrastructure on Monday and filing a case for tightening private alternatives on Tuesday is itself a policy signal. Britain’s systemic sterling stablecoin rules also hit their consultation deadline in the same window, and if the UK finalises a lighter reserve structure while the EU is still debating changes, stablecoin issuers gain a clear structural incentive to choose the UK as a domicile for EU-adjacent distribution.

Implications for Practitioners