The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) told national supervisors on Thursday, October 8, 2026, that crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) authorized under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) should stop serving EU clients in stablecoins that do not comply with the regulation. The opinion, ESMA75-113276571-1742, covers e-money tokens (EMTs) and asset-referenced tokens (ARTs) for which the conditions for a lawful offer to the public or admission to trading in the EU are not met. Supervisors should require firms to clear any remaining client exposures within three months.
The expectation covers every service MiCA regulates, from trading platforms, exchange, and order execution to placing, advice, transfers, custody, and portfolio management, whether provided individually or in combination. The opinion puts it in one line: “ESMA considers that CASPs should not provide crypto-asset services in relation to ARTs or EMTs that are not compliant with the applicable requirements under MiCA.”
Custody and transfers lose their carve-out
The opinion goes further than ESMA’s public statement of January 17, 2025. That statement asked trading platforms to stop offering non-compliant ARTs and EMTs for trading, and expected other services, such as order execution and exchange, to stop only “when their services constitute an offer to the public.” It allowed a “sell only” window until the end of the first quarter of 2025 and said that “mere custody and transfer of these crypto-assets should remain possible.”
This time, ESMA says its conclusion “does not depend on whether each individual crypto-asset service constitutes, in itself, an offer to the public or admission to trading.” It relies on Article 66(1) of MiCA, which requires CASPs to act honestly, fairly, and professionally in the best interests of clients. ESMA argues that the measures available to a service provider cannot adequately manage the risks of a non-compliant token, which stem from missing issuer-level safeguards. That should create “the presumption that the provision of all MiCA services is incompatible” with the duty. Warnings and disclosures to clients would not be enough.
Three months to wind down existing holdings
National authorities may still let firms that do not yet comply provide “strictly limited residual services” needed for an orderly wind-down. These cover only the liquidation, conversion, withdrawal, transfer, or safekeeping of existing holdings. They should not facilitate new acquisitions, promotion, or trading, and they should be time-limited, clearly communicated to clients, and closely supervised.
Where supervisors find legacy exposures, they should require remediation “as soon as possible and no later than three (3) months following the date of publication of this Opinion.” The opinion gives no calendar date. Counting from October 8, CoinDesk and Cointribune put the deadline at January 8, 2027, and Cointribune noted that national regulators may set an earlier one.
No token named, though the press points to USDT
The opinion does not name any stablecoin. CoinDesk, reporting it on October 8, cited Tether’s USDT, the largest stablecoin by market value, as a prominent example and noted that several platforms had already restricted USDT for European users. ESMA issued the text under Article 29(1)(a) of the ESMA Regulation, its tool for building a common supervisory culture. It does not affect the powers of the European Banking Authority and national authorities over token issuers.
Supervision moves ahead of the MiCA review
The opinion comes eight days after ESMA’s response to the European Commission’s consultation on the MiCA review, which recommended “introducing explicit rules to prevent regulated crypto firms from offering services linked to stablecoins that do not comply with MiCA requirements.” The October 8 text sets out a similar expectation under the current regulation. On October 2, Emmanuel Moulin, governor of the Banque de France (France’s central bank), backed a targeted MiCA revision providing “a clearer framework for the use of non-euro stablecoins in everyday payments and multi-issuer models.”