On Thursday 19 October, the first academic event in the framework of LegalCripto took place, the conference “Cryptoasset service providers between the “mifidisation” of MICA and the tokenisation of Mifid”. This conference served as a presentation and starting point for the ambitious project “Present and future of the regulation of cryptoassets in the EU [LegalCrypto]”, PROMETEO 2023, research groups of excellence, CIPROM/2022/26, directed and presented by Carmen Pastor Sempere and coordinated by Clara Isabel Cañero Lois.

Professor Maria-Teresa Paracampo, Professor of Financial Market Law and Digital Innovation at the Università degli Studi di Bari, presented her book I prestatori di servizi per le cripto-attività Tra mifidizzazione della MICA e tokenizzazione della Mifid, giving a lecture analysing the physiognomy, role and characteristics of cryptocurrency service providers in the light of the recently approved framework (i.e. MICA), which includes the status of newly introduced subjects alongside others already known in the traditional financial system. Between market access routes and various exemption regimes at national and European level, the legislator almost faithfully re-proposes, as Maria-Teresa Paracampo points out, the models already tested in the Mifid framework, to the point of “obscuring” that connotation of specialisation that should have distinguished the new regulation from the current one. Despite its potential, innovation in MICA follows tradition, penalised by the so-called “mifidisation” effect, which covers both the regulatory status of professionals in the new markets and the regulation of the services provided.

In addition, Ana Isabel Lois Caballé, Professor of Commercial Law at the University of Valencia, also participated in the conference with her lecture “Who is the weaker party in the MiCA Regulation”, focusing on the complex and even confusing consumer protection in the MiCA Regulation, and María Jesús Blanco Sánchez, Assistant Professor of Commercial Law at the Pablo de Olavide University in Seville, with her lecture “Reflecting on MiCA: from “lege data” to “lege ferenda”. The path towards a legal framework that “does not stifle innovation””, offering a lege ferenda analysis of the MiCA Regulation with a view to a future MiCA II.

The complex European legal framework that underpins the new digital reality requires careful research into its difficult regulatory framework, as most of them will be directly applicable as of 2024. Without prejudice to the scope of this ambitious European regulatory plan, there is no doubt that the financial sector will be an important sector whose profound transformation requires adequate regulation to ensure its stability. LegalCripto’s research objectives include the analysis of the legal implications of Blockchain technology (TDR) and its impact on the financial system and payment systems, as these will be key to ensuring that Europe does not lose its identity and values in the new Global Digital Market.

We are currently witnessing the final adoption of its general legal framework. In the near future there will be a leap in regulatory specialisation, which could take place with the second versions of the regulations on crypto-asset markets (MICA (2) and on electronic identification and trust services in electronic transactions (eIDAS (2)), including third versions on payment services and electronic money, such as the PSD (3), which brings us closer to the open finance phenomenon, without forgetting the technical standards and second-level development legislation that converge in the difficult architecture of a future digital euro, will undoubtedly have an impact on the resizing and positioning of new and old players in the Digital Single Market, which should be used to put citizens and SMEs at the centre of the financial system.

The day reported on the complex coordination and interaction with new regulatory frameworks for the challenges of the digital age, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), the European Digital Identity, and the European Digital Finance Strategy guidelines that are emerging as another concomitant realisation process, which could prelude the tokenised economy as a true European design objective of which we will report in depth, soon, at the International Congress, on 13, 14 and 15 December 2023.