After France and its PSAN status, the European Union will in turn regulate platforms for the sale, distribution and management of digital assets from 2024.
What are PSAPs?
CASP is the acronym for Crypto Asset Service Provider, a status provided for by the MiCA regulations. It is the European version of French status of PSANrelating to digital asset (cryptocurrency and cryptoasset) service providers.
The text concerns:
- Sales and trading platforms
- storage company
- management companies
- Digital token issuers
- The issuers of stablecoins pegged to the euro (stablecoins pegged to other currencies are not monitored by MiCA)
What are the requirements to become a CASP?
These players are regulated by ESMA (the European equivalent of theMFA), with the exception of stablecoin issuers, which are regulated by the EBA (the European Banking Agency).
Once the MiCA text is in effect by 2024, all applicants for status residing on European soil or with a subsidiary on the territory must:
- get a license with ESMA
- publish a white paper to present their activities
- keep their customers’ foreign currency deposits within Bank and credit institution
- Have customer identification (KYC) tools
- Fight against money laundering (AML)
For emergency call centers defined as “significant”, ie whose customer base reaches at least 15 million users within the EU on average in a calendar year, additional regulations must be made, in particular with regard to Equity capitalbased on the PSAN certification model.
Applicants for CASP status must submit their application to their national authority: in France, for example, to the AMF. It should be noted that once the MiCA regulations come into force in 2024, applicants for status will have 18 months to comply. Once CASP status has been achieved, a platform can be operated in all member states of the European Union. On the other hand, actors who are not based on European soil and do not engage in “active advertising”, i.e. advertising, can operate on the territory without registration.