MiCA's Gold-Backed Token Category Turns Two With Zero Issuers and a $4.4B Audience Walking Away 🥇

Two years after the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation took effect, not a single company has been authorized to issue an asset-referenced token under Title III of the framework, leaving the register empty since the rules began applying in June 2024. Asset-referenced tokens, or ARTs, are designed to maintain a stable value by being backed by multiple assets, including baskets of currencies such as 50% euro and 50% US dollar, gold and other commodities, or combinations of currencies, commodities and other crypto assets. MiCA's drafters reserved one of the regulation's largest sections for these products after Facebook's Libra project, a currency-basket stablecoin that alarmed central banks in 2019. Brussels proposed MiCA the following year, and the framework outlived Libra, which was renamed Diem and shut down in early 2022.

The regulatory burden is substantial. Under the rules, issuers must hold capital equal to 350,000 euros or 2% of reserves, whichever is higher, and any token that crosses 1 million transactions and 200 million euros in daily payments triggers a halt on new issuance, with significant tokens falling under direct European Banking Authority supervision. Circle EU Strategy and Policy Director Patrick Hansen said the empty register signals structural failure rather than slow adoption, writing that the category should either be adjusted to make it workable in practice or removed, adding that regulation should not be for the sake of regulation.

The contrast with the rest of MiCA is stark. E-money token issuers, which are stablecoins backed by a single official currency such as Circle's EURC or USDC, rose to 21 from 19 in March, while licensed crypto-asset service providers reached 280 in the European Securities and Markets Authority's latest register update. Outside the EU perimeter, the product class MiCA was built to govern continues to grow. Tether Gold (XAUT) and PAX Gold (PAXG) hold a combined market capitalization of $4.4 billion and rank among the top 50 crypto assets by market value, according to BeInCrypto Markets data, while Hansen's count identifies only USDC, USDG and EURC as MiCA-compliant among the top 50 stablecoins. Tether's refusal to seek MiCA authorization has already prompted Revolut to plan a delisting of USDT, highlighting the gap between regulated and unregulated markets for the assets Title III was written to cover.