The European Union may have only just reached the final stretch of MiCA implementation, but policymakers are already signaling that the framework will not remain static for long. Peter Kerstens, an adviser on technological innovation, digital transformation and cybersecurity in the European Commission’s financial services department, said on April 15, 2026 that a follow-up regime informally referred to as “MiCA 2” is highly probable, making clear that the next regulatory phase is being framed as an evolution of the rulebook, not a repudiation of it.
That distinction matters. Rather than presenting the current framework as inadequate, Kerstens described the coming reassessment as a technical response to a market that continues to change faster than legislation. With crypto products growing more complex and regulatory blind spots becoming easier to identify, the Commission appears to be preparing for refinement at the edges before those edges become systemic weaknesses.
The Review Mechanism Is Already Built In
The path toward a new legislative round is not speculative. MiCA already contains a review clause requiring the Commission to report on the regulation’s application by June 30, 2027, and that process can be followed by formal legislative proposals. Kerstens said the public consultation accompanying that review will begin “with no taboos,” a phrase that signals the EU is willing to reopen core questions if market evidence justifies it.
Between now and that report, the operational pressure will build quickly. MiCA’s full compliance deadline is set for July 1, 2026, which means firms will barely have settled into the existing regime before the debate begins over what should be tightened, expanded or left alone. That creates a compressed regulatory cycle in which implementation and redesign are starting to overlap.
Stablecoins, Custody and DeFi Are Moving to the Center
The areas likely to draw the closest scrutiny are already visible. Stablecoin issuance, reserve rules and settlement thresholds for euro-denominated tokens are emerging as obvious candidates for recalibration, particularly as industry participants continue to highlight uneven treatment between dollar stablecoins and electronic money tokens. In that context, reserve transparency and distribution mechanics are becoming central policy questions rather than technical side issues.
Custody standards and the obligations imposed on crypto-asset service providers are also likely to move higher on the agenda. As institutional participation grows, the pressure for more rigorous proofing, stronger operational controls and clearer compliance gating will only intensify. For supervisors, the next phase is likely to focus less on whether firms are licensed and more on how robustly their systems perform under stress.
DeFi, NFTs and staking remain the most obvious unresolved areas. These segments sit close to the boundaries of MiCA’s original design and continue to raise questions around investor protection, disclosure, control and market conduct. If MiCA 2 does take shape, it will likely be defined as much by the treatment of currently under-regulated activity as by adjustments to the rules already in force.
A Tighter Framework Could Mean a Smaller Industry
The broader direction is becoming easier to read. Kerstens and other speakers at Paris Blockchain Week described regulatory development as a filtering process, one that is likely to reduce the field of viable operators to those capable of meeting institutional-grade standards. That would raise barriers to entry, but it would also push the sector toward a more professionalized market structure built around bank-level expectations for custody, reporting and governance.
For firms already operating in Europe, the practical task is no longer just compliance with MiCA as written. They need to prepare for tighter transparency rules, reassess custody and reserve workflows, and model how future requirements could affect costs, publishing economics and settlement design. For institutional entrants, clearer regulation can reduce legal uncertainty; for native crypto firms, it will almost certainly mean a sharper test of operational maturity.
MiCA was always likely to be a starting point rather than an endpoint. What Kerstens made clear in Paris is that the EU now sees formal review not as a procedural footnote, but as the mechanism through which crypto regulation stays aligned with a market that continues to evolve. If that process unfolds as expected, MiCA 2 will not arrive as a surprise correction but as the next deliberate stage in Europe’s attempt to make crypto structurally governable.
