MiCA Article 85 — Significant CASP Designation Explained

The supervisory architecture MiCA built

The default supervisory model under MiCA is home-NCA primacy. The CASP is authorised by the NCA of the member state where it is established. That NCA runs the licensing, supervises conduct and prudential matters, and engages with host NCAs on cross-border activity through the Article 65 passport notification system and ongoing supervisory cooperation.

Article 85 carves out an exception for the largest CASPs. When a platform’s customer base or activity scale crosses a designated threshold, ESMA — the European Securities and Markets Authority — pulls into the supervisory model alongside the home NCA. The vehicle is the supervisory college: a formal arrangement that brings together the home NCA, ESMA, and the host NCAs of the member states where the CASP has material activity.

The college operating arrangements were specified by ESMA in its 2025 RTS on the significant CASP designation. The arrangements include quarterly college meetings, joint supervisory data review, coordinated host-NCA engagement on consumer-protection matters, and a structured information-exchange protocol.

The designation criteria

The primary trigger is customer base: an average of 15 million active users in the EU over the preceding calendar year. ESMA’s RTS defines “active user” as a customer who completed at least one crypto-asset service transaction with the CASP in the calendar quarter. The averaging across quarters smooths month-to-month volatility.

ESMA can also designate on discretion where the CASP’s activity has material cross-border systemic significance — for example, where the CASP operates a trading venue with material price-discovery influence on a key crypto-asset, or where the CASP holds custody for a material portion of an issuer’s outstanding token supply. The discretionary trigger is intended for edge cases the customer threshold does not capture cleanly.

In numbers terms, the 15-million threshold is high. Industry estimates suggest 4-8 platforms meet or approach it across the EU in 2026 — primarily the largest centralised exchanges with retail-focused EU operations, plus one or two pan-EU custody platforms with institutional client bases that count under the active-user definition. The mid-tier of CASPs — even quite large platforms with 1-5 million EU users — sits well below the threshold.

What changes when a CASP is designated

The home NCA remains the licensing authority. Authorisation, withdrawal, and sanctioning powers under MiCA Articles 63, 64, and 110 stay with the home NCA. The CASP continues to file its passport notifications, conduct dialogue, and consumer-protection responses with the home NCA as the primary counterparty.

What changes is the supervisory engagement layer. ESMA joins the supervisory dialogue through the college. The CASP files quarterly regulatory data packs — the data items specified in the ESMA RTS — which feed into the supervisory college’s ongoing assessment. Annual systemic-risk reviews cover the CASP. Host-NCA engagement on cross-border consumer matters is coordinated through the college rather than via bilateral channels.

For a CASP that has been operating as a standard-supervised entity, the transition is meaningful but not transformative. The supervisory team-up scales. The compliance reporting function adds an ESMA touch-point. The senior management is engaged in college meetings. None of it changes the authorised activity perimeter.

The relationship with AMLA direct supervision

A common misreading is that ESMA designation under MiCA Article 85 and AMLA direct supervision under the AMLR are the same regime. They are not. The two operate on different rulebooks and use different criteria.

• MiCA Article 85 designation is for crypto-asset consumer protection and market conduct supervision. Trigger: 15 million active EU users (the primary criterion). Supervisor: home NCA chairs the college, ESMA participates.
• AMLA direct supervision under the AMLR is for AML/CFT supervision. Trigger: operating in at least six member states with above-threshold customer count or transaction value in each. Supervisor: AMLA, replacing national AML supervisors for the directly-supervised entities.

A CASP may be a significant CASP under MiCA without being an AMLA-supervised entity (if it has high EU user numbers but concentrated in fewer than six member states), or vice versa (if it operates across many member states with smaller individual customer bases). Both regimes can apply to the same CASP, in which case the platform engages with both ESMA (via the supervisory college) and AMLA (as AML supervisor).

The CASP’s operational response

For a platform approaching the 15-million-user threshold, the operational response covers three workstreams:

Regulatory affairs. Build the supervisory-engagement function to handle ESMA-level dialogue. Update the supervisory-disclosure register to include college members. Define the senior-management calendar for college meetings.

Reporting and data. Implement the quarterly ESMA data pack. The data items in the RTS overlap with what most CASPs already produce internally — customer counts by member state, transaction volumes by service, complaints metrics, AML-related statistics — but the formal filing is new.

Compliance program scaling. A significant CASP attracts more supervisory attention from every direction. The compliance team needs to be sized for the engagement volume — typically a 30-50% headcount increase over a non-designated platform of comparable revenue.

What designation does not do

Article 85 is not a back-door route to a more permissive licence. The designation does not expand the CASP’s authorised service set, does not loosen its conduct obligations, and does not shrink its prudential requirements. The Article 67 own-funds calculation continues to apply on the same higher-of-two methodology. The Article 66 conduct rules continue to apply. The Article 75 custody safeguarding rules continue to apply.

The designation also does not move the licence to ESMA. The home NCA remains the authorisation authority. A significant CASP that wanted to surrender its authorisation, change its programme of operations, or appeal a supervisory decision deals with the home NCA, not ESMA.

For the 4-8 platforms within reach of the threshold, the practical message is to start modelling the regime now — the supervisory-college engagement is a working pattern that takes 6-12 months to build, and ESMA’s RTS makes clear that early-stage engagement before formal designation is encouraged.