Niall Esler
Partner
Ireland
This update is brought to you by our Regulatory & Risk Advisory practice group in Ireland.
Our aim is to keep you informed of the fast-evolving legal landscape, from new legislation and guidance to significant case law and observations.
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Legislation and guidance
Ireland
8 August 2025 – Central Bank of Ireland updates MiCAR FAQs.
- The Central Bank of Ireland has updated its MiCAR FAQs page, including an additional FAQ on the minimum qualification, experience and CPD required for staff giving information on crypto-assets and crypto-asset services to clients, by referencing the ESMA Guidelines for the criteria on the assessment of knowledge and competence under MiCAR (the Guidelines).
- The Central Bank of Ireland notes that the Guidelines assist crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) in meeting their obligations to act in the best interest of their clients.
- For more information on the Guidelines and other recent Central Bank of Ireland FAQs, including the Central Bank of Ireland FAQ on the EBA No Action Letter on the interplay between PSD2 and MiCAR, see our July CryptoReg Update.
European Union
5 August 2025 – EBA Final Report of draft regulatory technical standards (the Draft RTS) on the calculation and aggregation of crypto exposure values (for the purposes of prudential own funds requirements by credit institutions and certain investment firms) under Article 501d(5) of the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR).
- The EBA has published its Draft RTS which specify the technical elements necessary for in-scope institutions to calculate and aggregate crypto-asset exposures in relation to the prudential treatment of such exposures under Regulation (EU) 2024/1623 (CRR 3).
- The Draft RTS aim to further specify the relevant capital treatment for credit risk, including counterparty credit risk, market risk, and credit valuation adjustment risk for asset reference tokens that reference one or more traditional asset(s) and ‘other’ crypto-asset exposures.
- The Draft RTS include the relevant technical elements on the use of netting, aggregating of long and short positions, criteria to allow hedge recognition for other crypto-assets, and the underlying formulas relevant for calculating the exposure value of crypto-assets for the counterparty credit risk and market risk treatment.
- The Draft RTS also aim to ensure that institutions have reliable valuation processes of their crypto-asset exposures to ensure that they correctly calculate the own funds’ requirements for exposures to crypto-assets within the scope of MiCAR, which are not financial instruments or commodities.
- By way of next steps, the Draft RTS will be submitted to the European Commission for adoption. Following the adoption by the European Commission, the Draft RTS will be subject to scrutiny by the European Parliament and the Council before being published in the Official Journal of the European Union.
5 August 2025 – ESMA MiCAR White Paper Taxonomy 2025 published.
- ESMA has published the MiCAR White Paper Taxonomy 2025, including the following related documents:
- MiCAR XBRL Taxonomy documentation;
- MiCAR XBRL validation rules; and
- MiCAR White Paper Reporting Manual.
- The ESMA White Paper Taxonomy and related documents have been produced to assist reporting entities (i.e. issuers of crypto-assets, offerors, persons seeking admission to trading of crypto-assets and CASPs) obliged under the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2984 (the Whitepaper ITS) to prepare white papers, as well as software vendors assisting such entities in creating white papers that are compliant with the Whitepaper ITS.
- The Whitepaper ITS require that whitepapers are drawn up in XHTML format marking the fields set out in the Annex of the Whitepaper ITS using Inline XBRL. The ESMA White Paper Taxonomy should be used for drawing up whitepapers.
- These obligations apply from 23 December 2025.
20 August 2025 – MiCAR Delegated Regulation in relation to market abuse published in the Official Journal of the EU.
- Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/885 of 29 April 2025 supplementing Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 of the European Parliament and of the Council with regard to regulatory technical standards specifying the arrangements, systems and procedures to prevent, detect and report market abuse, the templates to be used for reporting suspected market abuse, and the coordination procedures between the competent authorities for the detection and sanctioning of market abuse in cross-border market abuse situations (the Delegated Regulation) has been published in the Official Journal of the EU.
- The Delegated Regulation specifies the requirements for the arrangements, systems and procedures and training obligations for persons professionally arranging or executing transactions in crypto-assets.
- The Delegated Regulation will enter into force on 9 September 2025.
Other updates
European Union
12 August 2025 - EBA Report on the use of AML/CFT SupTech tools published.
- The EBA has published a report examining the current use of supervisory technology (SupTech) tools at EU level, including how these tools are deployed, and the solutions competent authorities have identified that may determine the success or failure of SupTech initiatives.
- The EBA notes that information from competent authorities indicates that the use of SupTech tools can strengthen AML/CFT supervision by improving data analysis capabilities, enhancing efficiency and helping competent authorities obtain comprehensive insights into entities.
- In particular, an authority uses process mining, Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence for managing large datasets and streamlining supervision, particularly for crypto-related cases.
- A further authority has developed a crypto transaction risk monitoring tool, using blockchain analytics to analyse crypto-related risks.
- The EBA notes in the report that by leveraging technologies such as AI, blockchain and synthetic data generation, authorities are improving their risk assessment capabilities, enhancing operational efficiency and fostering greater collaboration across jurisdictions.
