PARIS, June 28 — The European Banking Authority laid out a proposed penalty framework on Friday that can strip non-compliant significant token issuers of up to 12.5% of their annual revenue.
The consultation paper published June 26 establishes a standardized playbook for hitting non-compliant issuers of what the EBA considers “significant” tokens with potentially multimillion-euro penalties. Under the proposal, the Paris-based watchdog will deploy a strict two-step process to determine fines, assessing the baseline severity of an infraction before factoring in aggravating or mitigating behavior.
Against this backdrop, the move represents the sharpening of teeth for the EU’s landmark Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation. Introduced to bring order to a historically freewheeling sector, MiCA is the world’s first comprehensive regulatory regime for digital assets, forcing token issuers and crypto service providers to operate with bank-like compliance, consumer protections and capital reserves if they want access to the single European market.
The stakes for non-compliance are explicit. The EBA’s framework, once finalized, will give regulators a clear arithmetic for calculating penalties tied to a firm’s annual revenue. In the corridors of European finance, this is seen as a warning shot: the era of self-policing in crypto is over.
What is at stake is the credibility of the entire MiCA architecture. The regulation, years in the making, was designed to attract institutional capital by imposing order on a sector long haunted by scandals and collapses. Without credible enforcement, the framework risks becoming a paper tiger. The EBA’s proposal, by contrast, aims to give it real bite.
The wider picture is one of regulatory convergence. As the U.S. administration under President Donald Trump charts its own course on digital assets, Europe is moving decisively toward a rules-based model. The EBA’s penalty framework is the latest signal that Brussels intends to police its new regime with the same rigor it applies to traditional banking.
The consultation period now begins, with market participants and national regulators expected to weigh in before the rules are finalized. For issuers of significant tokens — those deemed to pose the greatest risk to financial stability — the message from Paris is unmistakable: comply, or pay.
