The Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) has published a crypto market assessment calling for stronger consumer safeguards and more centralized EU supervision. The Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR) has helped the sector mature, but gaps remain in its scope and protections. The assessment advocates a larger role for the European Securities and Markets Authority and consistent application of MiCAR across the EU, reiterating the position outlined by AFM Chair Laura van Geest in a September 2025 newspaper column.
About one in eight people in the Netherlands now owns cryptoassets. Consumers face substantial volatility, difficulties understanding complex products and exposure to fraudulent or misleading assets, including market manipulation schemes. MiCAR lacks product governance requirements to ensure products meet consumers’ needs. Combining crypto trading with traditional investment or payment services can also obscure differences in regulatory protection.
Staking, lending and certain decentralized finance services remain wholly or partly outside MiCAR, leaving gaps in specific requirements for liquidity management, risk controls and collateral use. The assessment recommends explicitly bringing these activities within appropriate regulation.