Epicenter brings you in-depth conversations about the technical, economic and social implications of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies. Every week, we interview business leaders, engineers academics and entrepreneurs, and bring you a diverse spectrum of opinions and points of view. Epicenter is hosted by Sebastien Couture, Brian Fabian Crain, Friederike Ernst, Meher Roy and Felix Lutsch. Since 2014, our episodes have been downloaded over 8 million times.
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episode 362: Simon Polrot: Adan – Unraveling MiCA and the New Regulations Threatening Crypto in Europe
Adan (Association for the Development of Digital Assets), is an organization which helps promote the development of the crypto industry in France, and more broadly in Europe. Its President, Simon Polrot, is also the Co-founder Ethereum France, which host the EthCC conference in Paris.
The European Commission has released a regulatory proposal, MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets), which falls under The Digital Finance Package. The Adan team have been working hard to understand, dissect and establish positions with regards to this regulation. The scope of this MiCA is vast, and it covers nearly every type of activity which relates to cryptocurrencies, utility tokens, stablecoins, and security tokens in Europe. In addition to being broad, it puts enormous restrictions on the DeFi ecosystem by merely ignoring most decentralized use cases, making it nearly impossible for DeFi to continue existing as we know it. It's an important piece of regulation which would apply to almost every crypto asset company or issuer across the European continent, as well as companies who have customers or do business here.
We chat to Simon who explains what the draft proposal means and the effects it will have on the European crypto industry. He also shares how the community can get involved in steering the regulation in favour of the industry before it's passed into law.
Topics covered in this episode:
- Simon's background and how he became involved in crypto
- Adan's mission in France en Europe
- The high level principles of crypto regulations in Europe and the frameworks already in place
- The EU Commission's Digital Finance Package explained
- What MiCA is and who falls under this regulation
- How the Commission identifies “token issuers”
- How MiCA affects DeFi stablecoins like DAI
- What are Crypto-Asset Service Providers (CASPs) and how they are concerned by MiCA
- How the regulations may impact mining and staking
- How MiCA favors financial institutions over startups in the crypto space
- Why Simon thinks there is a positive side to this regulatory proposal
- What Adan is doing to raise awareness and lobby to amend this proposal and repair the issues arising out of the draft proposal
- How crypto companies can take part in the work of getting this regulation amended before it passes into law
- The possibility for an alternative crypto finance ecosystem to emerge from this regulation
Episode links:
- Adan Website
- About Adan
- Adan Webinar: Understanding the MiCA and Pilot Regime crypto regulation
- Become a member of Adan
- Adan on Twitter
- Simon on Twitter
Sponsors:
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This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/362