MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation)

Origin: composes. The European Union wrote this law, through the European Commission's Digital Finance Package and the Parliament/Council legislative process. Solidus did not draft it and holds no license under it.

MiCA, Regulation (EU) 2023/1114, is the EU's first comprehensive, harmonized legal framework for crypto-assets. Before it, EU crypto businesses operated under a patchwork of national licensing regimes that varied member state to member state; MiCA replaces that patchwork with a single EU-wide authorization that, once granted by one member state's competent authority, is "passportable", usable to operate across the whole EU without re-applying in each country.

What it actually requires

Three pieces matter most for anything identity-adjacent:

1. Licensing for Crypto-Asset Service Providers (CASPs). Any business exchanging, trading, custodying, or otherwise providing services around crypto-assets needs authorization from a national competent authority. This is the EU's version of the "VASP" registration category FATF defined globally (see VASP), MiCA formalizes and harmonizes it for the EU specifically.
2. AML obligations via the recast Transfer of Funds Regulation. MiCA doesn't write new anti-money-laundering rules itself; it requires CASPs to comply with the EU's existing AML framework, which for crypto-asset transfers specifically means the recast Transfer of Funds Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2023/1113), the EU's binding implementation of FATF's Travel Rule (see FATF Travel Rule), applied to crypto transfers with no minimum-amount exemption.
3. Stablecoin rules and disclosure requirements. Separate rules govern asset-referenced tokens and e-money tokens (reserve backing, redemption rights), plus white-paper disclosure obligations for anyone issuing or offering crypto-assets to the public.

Who actually built this

The European Commission proposed it as part of the 2020 Digital Finance Package; the Parliament and Council adopted it; ESMA and the European Banking Authority develop the detailed technical standards underneath it. This is EU financial law, drafted and enforced entirely by EU institutions, no private company, Solidus included, has any hand in it.

Solidus today

Solidus is not a CASP and has not applied for CASP authorization anywhere. It does not run a crypto-asset exchange, custody service, or trading platform: there is nothing to license. Solidus Verify issues reusable identity credentials; a licensed CASP could choose to accept one as an input into its own onboarding process, but that would be the CASP's decision and the CASP's compliance obligation, not a MiCA status Solidus itself holds. No Solidus product is described as MiCA-compliant, because that claim would not be accurate.

See also

FATF Travel Rule and VASP are the global standard and category MiCA's EU-specific licensing regime sits on top of. GDPR is the separate EU data-protection law that applies alongside MiCA wherever personal data is involved.