The European Securities and Markets Authority has urged European Union (EU) national authorities to ensure that exchanges no longer make non-compliant stablecoins available for trading in the next two months.
The regulator has requested that all 27 EU member states ensure that crypto asset service providers (CASPs) comply with its rules on stablecoins “by the end of the first quarter of 2025 at the latest,” ESMA said in a statement on Friday.
“In practice, this means that CASPs operating a cryptoasset trading platform are expected to stop manufacturing all cryptoassets that would qualify as ART and EMT but for which the issuer is not authorized in the EU (“non-EU ART”). compliant with MiCA and EMT” ) available for trading,” ESMA said. ARTs are asset-referenced tokens and EMTs are electronic money tokens.
The move would affect stablecoins that do not comply with EU laws, such as Tether’s USDT, if they were offered to EU customers.. Large emitters have already taken steps to try to comply with MiCA. Tether announced in November that it would discontinue its euro stablecoin, EURT. The company has failed to obtain an electronic money license to operate in the EU. Circle obtained an electronic money license in July.
According to the ESMA statement, exchanges such as Gemini and Coinbase, which are registered in the EU, would have to delist unauthorized stablecoins. Coinbase previously announced it would delist such tokens last December.
“Given our commitment to compliance, we restrict the provision of services to retail, exchange and Prime Vault clients of Coinbase Europe Limited, Coinbase Germany GmbH and Coinbase Custody International Limited in relation to stablecoins that do not comply with MiCA requirements as of December 13, 2024,” a Coinbase spokesperson told CoinDesk on Tuesday.
The exchange “will evaluate reactivating services for MiCA-compliant stablecoins at a later date,” the spokesperson said.
CoinDesk reached out to Gemini for comment.
Read more: Restrictive EU stablecoin rules coming into effect soon and issuers are running out of time
