Two years after the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation came into force, one data point cuts through all the regulatory optimism: exactly zero Asset-Referenced Token (ART) issuers have received approval. Not one. In a framework celebrated as the world's most comprehensive crypto rulebook, an entire asset category has functioned as a regulatory dead end — and now voices inside the EU policy apparatus are pushing for the scheduled MiCA review to reckon with that failure directly.

The contrast is difficult to ignore. Across the broader MiCA licensing landscape, approximately 280 firms have successfully navigated the framework and obtained operating licenses. That number represents real momentum — exchanges, wallet providers, crypto-asset service operators of various kinds working through national competent authorities to build compliant businesses inside the EU single market. The machinery works, at least for some categories. But the ART track has produced nothing. Zero issuers in two years is not a slow start. It is a structural signal.

What ARTs Were Supposed to Be

Asset-Referenced Tokens occupy a conceptually important position in MiCA's taxonomy. Unlike e-money tokens, which are pegged to a single fiat currency, ARTs were designed to reference a basket of assets — currencies, commodities, or other crypto assets. In theory, they addressed a real market need: a more diversified, potentially more stable digital instrument than a simple dollar or euro peg. Regulators were also acutely aware of the Libra/Diem episode, when Meta's proposed basket-currency stablecoin rattled central banks globally. The ART category was built, in part, to contain that risk through rigorous oversight.

The problem is that the oversight appears to have been calibrated so rigorously that no issuer has been able — or willing — to clear the bar. The requirements for ART issuers under MiCA are substantially more demanding than those for e-money token issuers: stricter reserve requirements, more complex authorization procedures, greater ongoing supervisory obligations. In practice, the economics and compliance burden may simply not pencil out for any issuer operating in the current market, where straightforward fiat-backed stablecoins already dominate liquidity and user adoption.

Hansen's Challenge: Fix It or Cut It

The most pointed response to the ART void has come from Hansen, who is calling on EU officials to use the forthcoming MiCA review as an opportunity to make a clear-eyed decision: either redesign the ART framework so it can actually function in practice, or remove the category from the regulation entirely. That is a notably blunt position to stake out within the usually measured world of EU financial regulation, and it reflects genuine frustration with a category that has consumed regulatory design effort without producing a single real-world outcome.

Hansen's argument has logic behind it. A regulatory category that exists on paper but attracts zero compliant issuers after two years is not protecting consumers — it is simply occupying space. If the ART framework is too onerous to work, keeping it unchanged while pointing to its theoretical availability as evidence of regulatory completeness serves no one. The EU has built a reputation for thorough, sometimes exhausting rulemaking. Admitting that one piece of that architecture needs to be rebuilt or retired would be an unusual but arguably healthy act of regulatory self-correction.

What the Zero Tells Us About MiCA's Broader Design

The ART situation raises a question that goes beyond any single token category: how does a regulator know whether a framework is too tight, too loose, or simply misaligned with market reality? The 280 licensed firms under MiCA suggest the regulation is workable in aggregate. But licensing activity has been concentrated in service providers — the exchanges, custodians, and brokers — rather than in token issuers themselves. The stablecoin market inside the EU remains effectively dominated by Tether and Circle-issued instruments, products that were designed before MiCA existed and are navigating compliance on their own timelines.

If the ART category was intended to catalyze a new generation of EU-native, diversified digital instruments, the two-year record suggests that ambition has not materialized. Whether that reflects the regulation itself, market indifference, or the broader dominance of dollar-denominated stablecoins globally is a question the review process will need to answer honestly. Pretending the category is merely nascent — rather than structurally broken — would be the worst possible response.

What This Means

The MiCA review represents one of the EU's first genuine opportunities to demonstrate that it can legislate adaptively in crypto — not just comprehensively. Zero ART approvals after two years, against 280 licenses granted elsewhere in the framework, is too stark a discrepancy to paper over with optimism. Hansen's call to fix or cut the category is the right framing. If the ART architecture can be rebuilt with workable reserve and authorization requirements, there may still be a market use case waiting for it. If it cannot, removing a non-functional category is not retreat — it is regulatory honesty. Either outcome would serve the market better than the current silence.

Written by the editorial team — independent journalism powered by Bitcoin News.