Regulation (EU) 2023/1114, known as MiCA, establishes for the first time a harmonised framework across the Union for the issuance of crypto-assets and for the services provided in relation to them. It applied in stages: first the regime for asset-referenced and e-money tokens, and then the rest, including the regime for service providers.
What changes for the investor
Three things, in order of practical importance.
Authorisation and supervision. Anyone providing crypto-asset services in Spain (custody, exchange, order execution, advice) needs authorisation and falls under supervision. Before engaging a provider, the minimum check is to verify that it appears on the relevant register. It is the cheapest diligence there is and the one fewest people carry out.
Standardised prior information. Issuances require an information document with minimum content and a liability regime for its contents. It does not guarantee that the investment is good; it guarantees that there is a document someone answers for.
Segregation of assets and custody. The regime strengthens the obligation to keep client assets separate from the provider's own and to be liable for their loss. It is, quite directly, the regulatory answer to the platform collapses of recent years.
What MiCA does not cover
This is the part worth reading slowly, because it is where residual risk concentrates:
- Crypto-assets that qualify as financial instruments fall under securities markets rules, not under MiCA. The classification does not depend on what the token is called, but on its economic substance.
- Genuinely unique, non-fungible NFTs are in principle outside scope, but a series issuance may end up treated as fungible despite its label.
- Fully decentralised services, with no identifiable intermediary, escape the perimeter in practice. That something falls outside the regulation does not mean it is safe; it means precisely the opposite.
Advertising still has its own rules
In Spain, advertising activity relating to crypto-assets is subject to specific requirements from the National Securities Market Commission on clarity, balance between risk and return, and mandatory warnings. It is a separate enforcement front from MiCA and also covers campaigns using influencers.
And tax, which MiCA does not govern
Tax treatment remains entirely national: taxation of capital gains, reporting obligations on balances and on holdings located abroad, and the declaration of assets and rights held overseas where applicable. It is the point where we have seen most files opened, and almost always by omission rather than concealment.
In short
MiCA turns the crypto-asset into a product with rules, a supervisor and identifiable responsible parties. That reduces operational risk, not market risk. Before going in, the same three questions still apply: who holds custody, what happens if the custodian fails, and how it is declared.
This article contains general information for informative purposes and does not constitute legal advice or an investment recommendation. The rules cited may have been amended after publication; always check the text in force before taking a decision.