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Two reports published by Europol on Wednesday urge Europe to begin migrating wallets and encrypted data away from cryptography that quantum computers could eventually break, citing Bitcoin's cumbersome upgrade path as a case study.
A breach of Denmark's central population registry, disclosed weeks after the country launched its AltID wallet, has reopened questions over how centralised data stores underpin Europe's digital identity and tax-reporting ambitions for crypto.
Speaking in London, ECB Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel laid out three possible architectures for putting Eurosystem reserves on distributed ledger technology, all preserving the two-tier banking system the euro area relies on.
Stani Kulechov has publicly criticised the European Central Bank and the European Banking Authority after their contributions to the MiCA consultation proposed extending the stablecoin yield ban to lending, borrowing and staking, and restricting regulated firms' access to DeFi.
The ECB president is calling for oversight of autonomous AI agents in finance, even as these systems already clear payments among themselves in USDC through protocols such as x402 and AP2, outside the central bank's reach.
The Hyperliquid Policy Center made its first submission to an EU regulatory consultation, arguing perpetual contracts are already covered by MiFID II. ESMA's own response, filed the same week, calls for tighter rules on third-country platforms and DeFi gateways.
ESMA and the French, German and Greek watchdogs are examining whether Binance can lawfully keep serving EU clients under MiCA's reverse-solicitation exemption after failing to secure a licence, the Financial Times reports.
Three months after France's transitional PSAN regime lapsed, the country's crypto landscape has been reshaped by MiCA, with 35 licensed providers, Binance France's departure and new European supervisory scrutiny on the horizon.
Four Greek firms have entered ESMA's MiCA registry as the Hellenic Capital Market Commission rejects a Wall Street Journal report alleging ECB chief Christine Lagarde pressured Greece's prime minister over Binance's licensing bid.
A sixth suspect has been charged in Poland's investigation into the collapse of Zondacrypto, formerly BitBay, as investigators search a fuel depot where founder Sylwester Suszek was last seen in 2022.
The European Central Bank has begun preparatory work to place part of its own funds portfolio into tokenised securities, with settlement to take place in central bank money on its newly launched Pontes platform.
Seven suspects, including a Swedish fugitive caught in the UAE, are accused of laundering roughly 70 million kronor through cryptocurrency in an operation authorities tie to organised crime and contract killings.
Binance withdrew its Greek MiCA application before regulators ruled, restricting its EU services since July. The Wall Street Journal reports ECB president Christine Lagarde may have pressed Athens against approval — a claim Greek regulator HCMC denies.
MEXC is closing its platform to residents of the Netherlands after failing to secure a MiCA licence, while rival Bybit EU, which holds regulatory approval, positions itself to take on the exchange's displaced Dutch users.