MiCA and the Rise of Merchants’ Trust in the Crypto Payments Industry – Is It Possible?

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The European Union is poised to take a significant leap forward with the introduction of the MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation).

Volumes have been said about transparency, utmost protection, clear regulation of stablecoins and a potential influx of investments into the crypto market.

But seldom ever tackled the question of crypto payment development in light of upcoming changes.

After MiCa comes into force, we can expect a significant spike in the willingness of low-risk businesses to enable crypto payments – and there are a lot of reasons behind it.

Coverage is finally closed to global

Crypto payment gateways always make an accent on global coverage.

But before MiCA, the regulatory environment for crypto payments in the EU has been a mosaic of national laws and interpretations – BanFin in Germany, AMF in France, DNB and AFM in the Netherlands, CNMV in Spain, CONSOB in Italy, MFSA in Malta and FIU in Estonia.

The lack of a cohesive regulatory framework has resulted in inconsistencies, presenting significant challenges for cryptocurrency payment providers seeking to expand their services across different countries within the European Union.

As a result, without a separate license obtained for each European jurisdiction, crypto payment providers could not fully satisfy the demand of merchants that seek to cover all countries through a single provider.

MiCA regulation will help businesses within the crypto payments domain solve these issues and provide seamless services to their customers by going through the process of passportization within each country.

Merchants will be able to enable crypto payments across the targeted countries by striking a deal with a single crypto payment provider and indeed get coverage that is close to global, as promised.

Regained trust in the industry will force businesses to accept crypto to get a competitive advantage because

The lack of a unified approach toward regulation allows for market manipulations, which might have undermined consumer trust and hindered the broader acceptance of cryptocurrencies.

The urgency for regulators to enforce crypto regulations globally has heightened in the aftermath of the scandalous FTX collapse, when the crypto market capitalization plummeted, reaching a two-year low of $736 billion on November 9, 2023, and has started its slow recovery not so long ago.

The investors appeared to be unprotected while the industry proved itself…