Circle Pushes Back on MiCA's Bank-Deposit Mandate for Stablecoins

In brief

• Circle submitted recommendations to the European Commission's MiCA review, arguing the framework has produced many regulated issuers but captured few of the biggest global tokens.
• It urged the EU to preserve "multi-issuance" (warning restrictions would push activity offshore) and to loosen reserve rules, siding with the ECB against the 30%-to-60% bank-deposit mandate.
• The push lands ahead of a broader 2027 MiCA overhaul and amid a wider U.S.-EU contest over stablecoin dominance.

Circle is pushing the European Union to rework parts of its crypto rulebook, arguing that the current rules governing stablecoins are keeping the world's biggest tokens outside Europe's regulatory perimeter.

The stablecoin issuer said Thursday it had submitted a response to the European Commission's consultation on reviewing the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, or MiCA, the bloc's comprehensive framework for digital assets.

Circle, which issues the dollar-pegged USDC and the euro-pegged EURC, framed its recommendations as refinements to a framework it credits with giving Europe an early lead.

The company's core argument is that MiCA has produced plenty of regulated issuers but failed to capture the largest global tokens. Of the top 25 stablecoins by market value, Circle noted, only three are MiCA-regulated.