EU's EBA Proposes Fines Up to 12.5% of Revenue for Crypto Firms
The European Banking Authority unveiled a penalty framework targeting non-compliant crypto token issuers under landmark EU regulations.
The European Banking Authority moved Friday to put real teeth into the European Union's landmark crypto regulations, proposing a penalty framework that could force non-compliant significant token issuers to forfeit as much as 12.5% of their annual revenue — a figure that could translate into hundreds of millions of euros for major players in the digital-asset space.
The EBA's proposed framework arrives as the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, broadly known as MiCA, begins to fully take hold across member states. MiCA represents one of the most comprehensive attempts by any major jurisdiction to bring crypto markets under a structured, enforceable legal regime, and Friday's penalty guidance signals that regulators intend to back that ambition with meaningful financial consequences.
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By targeting significant token issuers specifically — a classification that encompasses stablecoin operators and other large-scale digital-asset providers — the EBA is zeroing in on the segment of the crypto market that poses the greatest potential systemic risk to consumers and financial stability. The revenue-based penalty structure mirrors enforcement tools already used in traditional financial regulation, making it harder for well-capitalized firms to absorb fines as a routine cost of doing business.
The move reflects a broader tightening of regulatory posture in Europe toward digital assets, as authorities shift from writing rules to actively enforcing them. Industry participants operating under MiCA's framework will now need to weigh compliance costs against the prospect of steep, revenue-linked penalties that scale with the size of their operations.
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