EU Crypto Campaign Targets MiCA Stablecoin Rewards Ban

More than 50,000 Europeans contacted the European Commission during its review of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation to press for looser rules around stablecoin rewards, according to advocacy group Stand With Crypto EU. The campaign coincided with the September 30 deadline for the Commission’s formal MiCA review consultation. The 50,000 figure is an advocacy-group count of messages sent to Brussels rather than an independently published Commission total of accepted consultation responses. The Commission’s official MiCA review consultation ran from May 20 through September 30 and will feed into its assessment of whether the regulation remains fit for purpose.

Stand With Crypto is separately running a petition calling for a “pro-innovation strategy” for stablecoins, which has collected more than 126,000 signatures. The group wants policymakers to revisit restrictions on passing yield through to holders and to support broader use of stablecoins in payments, settlement and collateral. The petition and the 50,000-message campaign are separate measures of support and should not be combined into a single participation figure.

MiCA Defines Interest More Broadly Than Yield

Current MiCA rules prohibit issuers and crypto-asset service providers from granting interest on asset-referenced tokens and e-money tokens. The regulation also treats certain benefits as interest when they depend on how long a user holds the token, including compensation or discounts that have an equivalent economic effect. That means MiCA’s restriction reaches beyond a conventional advertised interest rate, but it does not categorically classify every cashback or loyalty program as prohibited.

The debate has practical consequences for platforms adjusting to Europe’s stablecoin regime. Revolut, for example, has moved to remove USDT access for eligible European customers as MiCA reshapes stablecoin distribution, while MiCA-compliant issuers such as Société Générale-FORGE have been expanding regulated stablecoin distribution through consumer wallet infrastructure. Reward rules are therefore one part of a wider competitive framework covering issuance, distribution and access to stablecoins inside the EU.

Stand With Crypto argues that allowing regulated reward mechanisms would help European stablecoins compete more effectively and strengthen the euro’s role in digital payments. Those are policy arguments advanced by the campaign rather than demonstrated effects of changing MiCA, and the Commission has not adopted them as its position.

European Central Banks Push the Other Way

The European System of Central Banks is advocating a substantially tighter approach. In its September response to the MiCA review, the ESCB said stablecoin remuneration should remain prohibited and argued that the restriction should reach unregulated activities including crypto lending, borrowing and staking where they reproduce the economic effect of interest. It also identified some loyalty-program benefits and liquidity-mining incentives as potential forms of indirect remuneration that could circumvent the current ban.

At the same time, the central banks proposed relaxing a different part of MiCA. They want existing minimum bank-deposit requirements for stablecoin reserves replaced by liquidity buckets requiring specified proportions of assets to mature within one and five working days. The ESCB is therefore proposing tighter treatment of holder yield alongside a more liquidity-focused approach to reserve composition.

The consultation does not itself change MiCA. The Commission will now use the submissions to prepare its mandated review and could accompany that work with legislative amendments if it considers them necessary. The broader debate is sometimes described as a potential “MiCA 2.0” expansion, but there is currently no final legislative package bearing that name and no adopted rule allowing or further restricting stablecoin rewards beyond existing MiCA provisions.