MiCA

Crypto assets, as an asset class, have seen soaring valuations and scandals over the years. One Luxembourg AIFM thinks this country’s nascent crypto asset ecosystem is primed for growth from institutional investors when all the puzzle pieces finally fit together.

Luxembourg is leading the way in Europe when it comes to crypto and blockchain technology. With MiCA, a new set of regulations from the European Parliament, Luxembourg’s early bet on cryptocurrency has been validated. We spoke with Nasir Zubairi, CEO of LHoFT - Luxembourg House of Financial Technology, who sees this as an opportunity for cryptocurrencies and crypto assets to enter mainstream markets within EU countries, and heard from banking association ABBL.

For Luxembourg’s crypto community, Thursday’s adoption of the MiCA regulation in the European Parliament reassures established financial players and offers an EU passportable licensing regime with no need for national transposition in member states. “It enables new ways of issuance and distribution of new types of assets,” said ABBL.

Europe’s long-awaited Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation is finally coming up for a vote this coming Thursday at the European Parliament’s meeting in Strasbourg. Players in the crypto industry around the world and in Luxembourg, from cryptocurrency to NFT providers are closely parsing the text that will be voted on. 

High hopes for crypto’s ability to revolutionise the financial world were dealt a harsh reality check with the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange last year. With Luxembourg having early on placed a bet on crypto, some have suggested it could suffer reputational damage. New regulation including the European Union’s MiCA regulation however may offer a way to do crypto safely, Thursday’s debate at Swissquote’s Luxembourg event heard.

Inheritance planning is one area where tokenisation can provide benefits, the experience of VP Bank in the Alpine state shows. The bank’s specialists recent spoke in Luxembourg to explain how tokenisation can be applied once the EU MiCA regulation enters into force.

A recent European Union agreement to crack down on the “wild west” in international crypto markets is “not a threat for the Luxembourg crypto market,” according to a senior official at international fund services firm Apex Group.

Representatives of the European Council and the EU parliament have reached a political agreement on the Markets in Crypto Assets proposal, known as MiCA, which covers issuers of unbacked crypto-assets, and so-called stablecoins, as well as the trading venues and the wallets where crypto-assets are held. 

There’s a strong level of interest in crypto finance in Luxembourg’s financial centre, according to a survey carried out by the Luxembourg House of Financial Technology and PwC. The Grand Duchy nevertheless has yet to develop the necessary infrastructure to be a leading crypto finance centre.

The survey, entitled “Crypto-assets: Paradigm shift or short-term trend?” was carried out in the last quarter of 2021 and was presented on Wednesday at a Luxembourg event hosted by PwC.