{
 "schema": "donnylewis.record.submission/v1",
 "id": "mica-review-2026",
 "canonical_url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/",
 "meta": {
  "title": "Trust Architecture for European Digital Finance",
  "subtitle": "Regulation Without Collapsing Trust Into Control",
  "consultation": "European Commission targeted consultation on the review of Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 (MiCA)",
  "consultation_url": "https://finance.ec.europa.eu/regulation-and-supervision/consultations-0/targeted-consultation-review-mica-regulation_en",
  "consultation_closed": "2026-09-30",
  "submitted_at_receipt": "30/09/2026 18:20:41",
  "submitted_date": "2026-09-30",
  "paper_dated": "2026-09-27",
  "contribution_id": "d219e98e-6363-44e9-80ca-d07923f9126c",
  "author": "Donny Lewis",
  "signing_identity": "DVSlewis.eth",
  "respondent": {
   "name": "Donny Lewis",
   "organisation_field": "Viridis.info",
   "respondent_type": "Other",
   "organisation_size": "Micro (1 to 9 employees)",
   "field_of_activity": "Social entrepreneurship",
   "language": "English",
   "publication_setting": "Public",
   "process": "Written by Donny Lewis, without a team. AI helped him rewrite drafts and work through his own position.",
   "framing": "Submitted by Donny Lewis personally. Viridis.info is the organization he is part of and was entered in the form's organisation field."
  },
  "commission_publication_url": null,
  "attestation": {
   "status": "pending",
   "chain": null,
   "uid": null,
   "url": null
  }
 },
 "documents": [
  {
   "role": "condensed_paper",
   "title": "Trust Architecture for European Digital Finance (condensed paper, 6 pages)",
   "file": "donny-lewis-trust-architecture-mica-review-2026.pdf",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/donny-lewis-trust-architecture-mica-review-2026.pdf",
   "pages": 6,
   "bytes": 108097,
   "sha256": "5e4368f2f458bd55c769bb7d45b803e6107113c32e386889498bb9e14f2ecba2"
  },
  {
   "role": "full_response",
   "title": "Full questionnaire response as exported by EUSurvey (136 pages)",
   "file": "donny-lewis-mica-review-2026-full-response.pdf",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/donny-lewis-mica-review-2026-full-response.pdf",
   "pages": 136,
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   "sha256": "aaa6fcab693f9dc38823d8b8f8aa49aaa3b474437fe8af937d2745dc0dc59a84"
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 ],
 "lens": [
  "Identify the vulnerability.",
  "Locate the party receiving authority.",
  "Bound that authority.",
  "Require inspectable evidence.",
  "Examine where risk is transferred.",
  "Preserve meaningful choice and exit."
 ],
 "paper": {
  "core_proposition": "Financial regulation does not eliminate vulnerability. It redistributes it. Good regulation should therefore identify the specific vulnerability at issue, assign only the authority necessary to address it, make the exercise of that authority inspectable and proportionate, and preserve meaningful choice and exit wherever possible.",
  "sections": [
   {
    "id": "executive-summary",
    "title": "Executive summary",
    "paras": [
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "MiCA was an important attempt to create legal certainty for a market that had grown faster than the institutions around it. The present review is an opportunity to improve that framework without allowing legitimate concerns about consumer protection, financial stability, illicit finance and operational risk to harden into a financial architecture in which control accumulates simply because control is technically possible."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "My contribution is based on a framework I call Trust Architecture. I define trust as willingly accepted vulnerability in the presence of risk. The definition matters because it separates trust from verification, compliance and control. Cryptography can prove identity, provenance, signatures, balances and execution. Regulation can compel behaviour. Neither fact, by itself, establishes that the resulting relationship is trustworthy."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "The practical implication is simple: different trust failures occur at different layers and need different defences. Issuer risk does not automatically require control of the settlement ledger. Anti-money-laundering obligations imposed on an identifiable intermediary do not automatically justify turning neutral software or non-custodial infrastructure into an intermediary. Identity verification does not automatically require every verifier to retain another complete copy of the person. Smart-contract risk does not automatically justify a gatekeeper deciding which permissionless protocols Europeans may access."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "The Commission's consultation itself states that financial regulation should remain technology neutral in order to preserve freedom of choice for market participants. I support that principle. I suggest extending it into an architectural principle: regulation should be neutral not only between technologies, but also between legitimate architectures that allocate trust and control differently while achieving the required regulatory outcome."
     }
    ]
   },
   {
    "id": "1-trust-verification-and-control-are-not-the-same-thing",
    "title": "1. Trust, verification and control are not the same thing",
    "paras": [
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "Trust begins where proof ends. If an outcome is fully guaranteed, no vulnerability remains and trust is unnecessary. Real financial systems cannot eliminate vulnerability: they decide who carries it, who receives authority over it, what evidence is available and what recourse exists when the relationship fails."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "This distinction is increasingly important because digital infrastructure can make control look like trust. A credential may be authentic. Its issuer may be verified. A transaction may be correctly signed. The provenance may be perfect. Yet the weaker party may still have almost no meaningful choice about whether to enter the relationship, what data to disclose, which intermediary to use or whether an alternative path remains available."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "The European Digital Identity framework is useful as an adversarial case. The Commission states that use of the EUDI Wallet is not mandatory and that users will control which data they share. Those are important safeguards. At the same time, public services and certain private services will be required to recognise the wallet, and the infrastructure is designed for broad use across banking, employment, travel, education and government services. Formal voluntariness should therefore be protected not only in law but in market structure. A choice can remain legally optional while becoming practically difficult to refuse if essential services converge on one architecture."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "This is not an argument against EUDI, cryptography or interoperable credentials. It is an argument for a stronger test: does the architecture preserve meaningful choice for the party carrying the vulnerability? No meaningful choice means no meaningful consent. Without meaningful consent, vulnerability may be imposed or compelled, but it is not willingly accepted trust."
     }
    ]
   },
   {
    "id": "2-regulation-redistributes-vulnerability",
    "title": "2. Regulation redistributes vulnerability",
    "paras": [
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "Every regulatory intervention changes the trust graph. A reserve requirement may reduce one form of issuer risk while concentrating assets in commercial banks and creating another liquidity dependency. A KYC requirement may reduce anonymity at an intermediary while creating durable databases of passports, addresses, biometrics and transaction histories that become attractive targets for compromise or compelled disclosure. A certification requirement may reduce uncertainty about a smart contract while creating a gatekeeper whose approval becomes economically necessary."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "The correct question is therefore not simply whether a rule reduces a named risk. It is: where does the vulnerability go after the rule is imposed? Who acquires new authority? What new dependency is created? Can that authority be inspected and challenged? Can a user choose another path without losing practical access to economic life?"
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "This review already contains a contemporary example. European central banks have argued that MiCA's bank-deposit requirements for stablecoin reserves can themselves create financial- stability concerns. Whatever final policy is chosen, the episode demonstrates the general point: controls move risk through a system. They do not make risk disappear."
     }
    ]
   },
   {
    "id": "3-regulate-the-actor-that-holds-the-authority",
    "title": "3. Regulate the actor that holds the authority",
    "paras": [
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "MiCA's treatment of decentralised finance should be built around actual control rather than labels. The consultation correctly asks about identifiable intermediaries, administrator keys, concentrated governance power and custody. These are useful because they identify where authority actually exists."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "An identifiable party that can unilaterally upgrade a protocol, seize or freeze assets, alter material economic parameters, misrepresent a product or custody customer funds can reasonably carry obligations corresponding to that authority. The same logic should work in the other direction. Where no party possesses such authority, regulation should not manufacture an intermediary by assigning liability to software developers, non-custodial wallet providers or connectivity providers merely because they are easier to identify."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "The regulatory perimeter should follow effective authority and accepted vulnerability. This is more durable than attempting to classify systems as simply 'centralised' or 'decentralised'. A protocol may be decentralised in execution but concentrated in governance. A company may provide a user interface without custody. A wallet developer may publish software without controlling subsequent transactions. Those relationships are different and should not be collapsed into one category."
     }
    ]
   },
   {
    "id": "4-certification-should-produce-information-not-permission",
    "title": "4. Certification should produce information, not permission",
    "paras": [
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "Questions 62-65 consider certification, whitelists, blacklists and restrictions on CASP connectivity to DeFi. Certification can be useful when it produces inspectable evidence: code has been audited, upgrade authority is disclosed, economic assumptions are documented, incidents are reported, and material changes invalidate or update the assessment."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "It becomes dangerous when certification changes from evidence into permission. A public or private certifier should not become the de facto authority deciding which otherwise lawful permissionless protocols Europeans may use. That would replace one set of technical risks with institutional dependency and would weaken the very technology-neutrality and freedom of choice identified by the Commission as regulatory objectives."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "A better default is evidence plus disclosure. CASPs may perform risk assessments and present clear warnings. Users should be able to distinguish audited from unaudited systems, immutable from upgradeable contracts, concentrated from distributed governance, custodial from non- custodial access, and verified from unverified claims. Restrictions should be tied to specific unlawful conduct or demonstrable regulatory obligations, not to the absence of institutional approval itself."
     }
    ]
   },
   {
    "id": "5-permissionless-settlement-and-regulated-institutions-can-coexist",
    "title": "5. Permissionless settlement and regulated institutions can coexist",
    "paras": [
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "The debate should also avoid treating institutional responsibility and permissionless infrastructure as opposites. In September 2026, SoFi Bank and Mastercard announced that stablecoin settlement is live across SoFi's debit and credit card program, with the program expected to process more than USD 25 billion in annualised volume using SoFiUSD. Mastercard describes SoFiUSD as a stablecoin issued by a nationally chartered U.S. bank on a public, permissionless blockchain."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "This does not prove that every financial use case belongs on a public blockchain, nor does it establish that the SoFi architecture should be copied in Europe. It demonstrates something narrower and important: regulation of an issuer does not logically require institutional control of the underlying ledger. Issuance, reserves, redemption, compliance, settlement, privacy and network participation are separable functions."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "European policy should preserve the ability to make those separations. Where confidentiality is required, regulate or engineer confidentiality. Where an issuer must hold reserves, regulate reserves. Where an intermediary holds customer assets, regulate custody. Do not infer from one legitimate authority that the same actor must control every layer below it."
     }
    ]
   },
   {
    "id": "6-privacy-prove-what-is-necessary-possess-no-more-than-necessary",
    "title": "6. Privacy: prove what is necessary, possess no more than necessary",
    "paras": [
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "Identity and compliance create another recurring trust failure: verification is frequently implemented through possession. A service needs to establish a fact about a person, so it collects and retains a reusable copy of the person - identity documents, addresses, photographs, financial records or other data. The verification event ends; the vulnerability remains."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "European digital identity work already recognises selective disclosure and user control as goals. MiCA and adjacent financial regulation should reinforce the same principle. Regulation should specify the fact that must be established and the evidence that must be retained for accountability, while allowing privacy-preserving proofs, attestations and reusable credentials where they satisfy the legal requirement. Verification should not automatically mean universal duplication."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "Data minimisation is therefore not merely a privacy preference. It is risk architecture. Every unnecessary copy creates another custodian, another attack surface, another legal jurisdiction and another party capable of exposing or compelling the data."
     }
    ]
   },
   {
    "id": "7-the-walk-away-test",
    "title": "7. The walk-away test",
    "paras": [
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "A useful final test for digital-finance regulation is whether the person or organisation carrying the vulnerability retains a credible ability to leave. Exit does not mean that every regulated service must be anonymous, free of conditions or available without compliance. It means that regulation should avoid unnecessary architectural lock-in when multiple compliant ways of satisfying the same requirement are possible."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "The test can be stated plainly: if I reject this intermediary, identity provider, wallet, settlement network or certification authority, is there another lawful route that preserves the essential service? If not, the authority of that component deserves heightened scrutiny because consent around it is becoming progressively less meaningful."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "The weakest participant is usually the first to lose exit. Large institutions can negotiate interfaces, licences and exemptions. Individuals and small builders generally accept the architecture presented to them. Preserving plural routes is therefore not only an innovation concern; it is a protection against concentrated vulnerability."
     }
    ]
   },
   {
    "id": "8-recommendations-for-the-mica-review",
    "title": "8. Recommendations for the MiCA review",
    "paras": [
     {
      "lead": "Follow effective control.",
      "text": "Attach obligations to identifiable actors according to the authority they actually exercise: custody, unilateral upgradeability, transaction control, material governance power, representations to users, or control over customer assets."
     },
     {
      "lead": "Preserve non-custodial software as software.",
      "text": "Do not create an intermediary merely because a developer, wallet provider or interface is identifiable when that party does not control the user's assets or the underlying protocol."
     },
     {
      "lead": "Use certification as evidence, not a licence to exist.",
      "text": "Encourage inspectable security and governance assessments, but avoid making public/private whitelists or certificates the default gate through which lawful permissionless protocols must pass."
     },
     {
      "lead": "Make architectural neutrality part of technology neutrality.",
      "text": "Specify regulatory outcomes and allow regulated actors to meet them through public, private, permissioned or permissionless infrastructure where equivalent safeguards can be demonstrated."
     },
     {
      "lead": "Require vulnerability-transfer analysis.",
      "text": "For material new rules, assess not only the risk reduced but the new concentration, data, liquidity, operational or governance dependency created by the intervention."
     },
     {
      "lead": "Prefer verification over possession.",
      "text": "Where identity or eligibility must be established, permit data-minimising proofs and attestations that establish the necessary fact without unnecessary replication of underlying personal data."
     },
     {
      "lead": "Protect meaningful exit.",
      "text": "When infrastructure becomes systemically important, assess whether users retain realistic alternative compliant routes and whether switching is technically and economically feasible."
     },
     {
      "lead": "Preserve permissionless innovation.",
      "text": "Avoid requiring neutral protocols, open-source code or non-custodial wallets to embed universal compliance controls merely to remain accessible; impose obligations at the layer where regulated authority actually exists."
     }
    ]
   },
   {
    "id": "9-relevance-to-the-consultation-questionnaire",
    "title": "9. Relevance to the consultation questionnaire",
    "paras": [
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "Question 9-10 (future role and benefits of stablecoins): stablecoins can become meaningful payment and settlement infrastructure without requiring a single ledger topology. The SoFi/Mastercard example demonstrates that regulated issuance can coexist with public permissionless infrastructure."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "Questions 59-61 (DeFi and decentralisation): assess decentralisation through actual control - custody, administrator keys, unilateral upgrade authority, concentrated governance and identifiable intermediaries - rather than branding or the mere existence of identifiable developers."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "Questions 62-65 (indirect regulation and certification): favour transparent risk information, audits and disclosures over mandatory certification gates, whitelists or prohibitions on connectivity to otherwise lawful permissionless protocols."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "Questions 66-67 (staking, lending and borrowing): distinguish custodial service provision from autonomous protocol use. Apply obligations to parties that custody assets, make representations, intermediate transactions or exercise effective control, rather than treating the underlying technical action as requiring the same regulatory wrapper in every architecture."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "Questions 74-79 (tokenised deposits): preserve competition among settlement architectures. Regulation of deposit liabilities and prudential risk should not unnecessarily dictate whether compliant settlement occurs on institutionally controlled or public infrastructure."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "Question 86 (other relevant issues): adopt Trust Architecture as an analytical discipline for digital-finance regulation: identify the vulnerability, locate the party receiving authority, bound that authority, require inspectable evidence, examine where risk is transferred, and preserve meaningful choice and exit."
     }
    ]
   },
   {
    "id": "conclusion",
    "title": "Conclusion",
    "paras": [
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "Europe does not need less trust. It needs to become more precise about where trust is placed."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "The promise of cryptography is not that institutions disappear. It is that some things that previously required institutional trust can now be independently verified. The promise of good regulation should be similar: not to eliminate every vulnerability through control, but to place authority where it is necessary, bound it to the vulnerability it exists to address, and leave the rest of the system free to develop."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "A weak architecture asks for one master solution. A stronger architecture understands that different trust failures occur at different layers and need different defences."
     },
     {
      "lead": "",
      "text": "MiCA can protect consumers and markets without making institutional permission the default trust layer of European digital finance. The Commission's own commitment to technology neutrality and freedom of choice provides the right starting point. The next step is to apply that principle to the architecture itself."
     }
    ]
   }
  ],
  "sources": [
   {
    "lead": "",
    "text": "• European Commission - Targeted consultation on the review of MiCA Regulation"
   },
   {
    "lead": "",
    "text": "• European Commission - Consultation document (MiCA review)"
   },
   {
    "lead": "",
    "text": "• European Commission - European Digital Identity Regulation overview"
   },
   {
    "lead": "",
    "text": "• European Commission - Q&A on EU Digital Identity"
   },
   {
    "lead": "",
    "text": "• SoFi - Stablecoin settlement live across Mastercard card program, 22 September 2026"
   },
   {
    "lead": "",
    "text": "• Mastercard - SoFiUSD settlement architecture, 3 March 2026"
   },
   {
    "lead": "",
    "text": "• Donny Lewis - The Truth About Trust 3: The Scaffolding We Actually Want"
   }
  ]
 },
 "questions": [
  {
   "id": "1",
   "anchor": "q-1",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-1",
   "part_no": "1",
   "section": "1.1 MiCA scope & crypto-asset classification",
   "page": 10,
   "question": "Should crypto-assets that qualify as financial instruments as defined in Directive 2014/65/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council, continue to be governed by sectorial legislation (MiFID/MiFIR / MAR / Prospectus Regulation , etc.), or should all assets that are recorded and transacted on distributed ledgers and that meet the definition of a crypto-asset, or the services provided on such assets, in principle be covered by MiCA?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "Yes, they should remain under the main sectoral legislation",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 10
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "1.1",
   "anchor": "q-1-1",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-1-1",
   "part_no": "1",
   "section": "1.1 MiCA scope & crypto-asset classification",
   "page": 10,
   "question": "Is the distinction between financial instruments governed by MiFID and crypto-assets governed by MiCA sufficiently clear, also taking into account ESMA’s guidelines on the conditions and criteria for the qualification of crypto-assets as financial instruments?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "No, clarification is needed",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 10
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "1.2",
   "anchor": "q-1-2",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-1-2",
   "part_no": "1",
   "section": "1.1 MiCA scope & crypto-asset classification",
   "page": 10,
   "question": "Please explain your answer to question 1.1 and suggest any policy actions for clarification if needed:",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "",
     "page": 10,
     "text": "The legal treatment The legal treatment should follow the economic function, rights and vulnerabilities of the asset, not the database on which it is recorded. A financial instrument should not become a different legal object merely because it moves onto a distributed ledger. Technology neutrality requires exactly this restraint. Where clarification is needed, it should focus on functional characteristics and the authority exercised by issuers and intermediaries rather than creating a second regime based on technical form. follow the economic function, rights and vulnerabilities of the asset, not the database on which it is recorded. A financial instrument should not become a different legal object merely because it moves onto a distributed ledger. Technology neutrality requires exactly this restraint. Where clarification is needed, it should focus on functional characteristics and the authority exercised by issuers and intermediaries rather than creating a second regime based on technical form."
    }
   ],
   "note": "My copy-paste error. The opening words repeat and the middle of this answer appears twice. The first complete version is what I meant."
  },
  {
   "id": "2",
   "anchor": "q-2",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-2",
   "part_no": "1",
   "section": "1.1 MiCA scope & crypto-asset classification",
   "page": 11,
   "question": "To what extent have ESMA’s MiCA Article 2(5) guidelines and the joint ESA standardised classification test reduced uncertainty in practice? Which borderline cases remain difficult? Please explain your response and suggest any policy actions for clarification if needed.",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "",
     "page": 11,
     "text": "The remaining difficulty is not solved by adding more labels. Hybrid and composable assets can change function depending on how they are used. Classification should therefore be grounded in enforceable rights, economic function, custody, control and the vulnerabilities accepted by users. A token that technically looks identical may create very different trust relationships depending on who can upgrade it, redeem it, custody it or change its economics."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "3",
   "anchor": "q-3",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-3",
   "part_no": "1",
   "section": "1.2 Transparency rules and ex post supervisory control regime",
   "page": 11,
   "question": "Title II establishes disclosure, marketing, conduct and liability rules for public offers and admission to trading of crypto-assets other than ART and EMT. How appropriate or effective is the design of Title II in balancing investor protection, market integrity and innovation? a) Please assess each provision below along their adequacy:",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Exemptions for offers to <150 persons per Member State, small offerings (<€1m over 12 months), and qualified investors (Article 4 (2))",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (moderately adequate)",
     "subpart": "a) Please assess each provision below along their adequacy:",
     "page": 12,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (moderately adequate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "White paper disclosure framework (Article 6): issuer information, crypto-asset characteristics, tokenomics, risks, use of proceeds",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (mostly inadequate)",
     "subpart": "a) Please assess each provision below along their adequacy:",
     "page": 12,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (mostly inadequate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Marketing requirements: identifiable, fair, clear, not misleading and consistent with the white paper (Article 7)",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (mostly inadequate)",
     "subpart": "a) Please assess each provision below along their adequacy:",
     "page": 12,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (mostly inadequate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Ex ante notification model without prior regulatory approval (Article 8)",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (fully adequate)",
     "subpart": "a) Please assess each provision below along their adequacy:",
     "page": 12,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (fully adequate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Obligation to modify/update the white paper for significant new factors, material mistakes or inaccuracies (Article 12)",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (mostly inadequate)",
     "subpart": "a) Please assess each provision below along their adequacy:",
     "page": 12,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (mostly inadequate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Retail investor right of withdrawal (14 days), excluding assets already admitted to trading or after subscription period ends (Article 13)",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "a) Please assess each provision below along their adequacy:",
     "page": 12,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 1 of 6 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 12)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Conduct obligations: honesty, fairness and professionalism, clear communications, conflicts management, and effective systems and security arrangements (Article 14)",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (mostly inadequate)",
     "subpart": "a) Please assess each provision below along their adequacy:",
     "page": 12,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (mostly inadequate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Civil liability for inaccurate, misleading or incomplete white paper information (Article 15)",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "a) Please assess each provision below along their adequacy:",
     "page": 13,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 1 of 6 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 13)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Overall balance between investor protection, market integrity and innovation under Title II",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "a) Please assess each provision below along their adequacy:",
     "page": 13,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 1 of 6 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 13)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Exemptions for offers to <150 persons per Member State, small offerings (<€1m over 12 months), and qualified investors (Article 4 (2))",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (should be somewhat weakened)",
     "subpart": "b) Please assess each provision below along the direction of change you consider appropriate:",
     "page": 16,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (should be somewhat weakened)"
    },
    {
     "item": "White paper disclosure framework (Article 6): issuer information, crypto-asset characteristics, tokenomics, risks, use of proceeds",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (should remain unchanged)",
     "subpart": "b) Please assess each provision below along the direction of change you consider appropriate:",
     "page": 16,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (should remain unchanged)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Marketing requirements: identifiable, fair, clear, not misleading and consistent with the white paper (Article 7)",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (should remain unchanged)",
     "subpart": "b) Please assess each provision below along the direction of change you consider appropriate:",
     "page": 16,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (should remain unchanged)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Ex ante notification model without prior regulatory approval (Article 8)",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (should remain unchanged)",
     "subpart": "b) Please assess each provision below along the direction of change you consider appropriate:",
     "page": 16,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (should remain unchanged)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Obligation to modify/update the white paper for significant new factors, material mistakes or inaccuracies (Article 12)",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (should remain unchanged)",
     "subpart": "b) Please assess each provision below along the direction of change you consider appropriate:",
     "page": 16,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (should remain unchanged)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Retail investor right of withdrawal (14 days), excluding assets already admitted to trading or after subscription period ends (Article 13)",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (should be somewhat weakened)",
     "subpart": "b) Please assess each provision below along the direction of change you consider appropriate:",
     "page": 16,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (should be somewhat weakened)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Conduct obligations: honesty, fairness and professionalism, clear communications, conflicts management, and effective systems and security arrangements (Article 14)",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (should be somewhat weakened)",
     "subpart": "b) Please assess each provision below along the direction of change you consider appropriate:",
     "page": 16,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (should be somewhat weakened)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Civil liability for inaccurate, misleading or incomplete white paper information (Article 15)",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (should be somewhat weakened)",
     "subpart": "b) Please assess each provision below along the direction of change you consider appropriate:",
     "page": 17,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (should be somewhat weakened)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Overall balance between investor protection, market integrity and innovation under Title II",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (should be somewhat weakened)",
     "subpart": "b) Please assess each provision below along the direction of change you consider appropriate:",
     "page": 17,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (should be somewhat weakened)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your ratings in question 3 a), focusing on the issues you deem most significant regarding the overall balance between investor protection, market integrity and innovation:",
     "page": 14,
     "text": "The central problem with Title II is not simply whether each disclosure obligation is individually reasonable. It is the architecture created when disclosure, authorisation, marketing restrictions, issuer obligations and intermediary controls accumulate. Evidence is useful. Permission is different. A white paper can make risk inspectable. Liability can make representations accountable. Neither requires the regulator to become the authority that decides in advance which laI believe Title II requires substantial redesign rather than incremental adjustment.\n\nIts fundamental problem is architectural.\n\nArticle 4 begins from the position that a person shall not make an offer to the public unless that person satisfies a prescribed regulatory structure. Freedom to experiment therefore becomes an exemption from a prohibition rather than the starting condition.\n\nI believe that burden should be reversed.\n\nThe starting presumption should be that people are free to build, offer, experiment, invest and voluntarily accept risk unless a specific activity creates a specific vulnerability that justifies intervention.\n\nFraud should remain fraud. Materially false representations should create liability. Misappropriation should create liability. If an issuer promises particular rights, reserves, governance arrangements or use of proceeds, those representations should be enforceable.\n\nNone of that requires the state to become the gatekeeper of the activity itself.\n\nThis distinction matters because disclosure can be useful without becoming permission. A simple, proportionate requirement to disclose who controls the project, what rights the asset represents, material risks, insider allocations, upgrade authority, custody arrangements and use of proceeds can provide valuable evidence to a prospective participant.\n\nBut the current architecture goes considerably further. It prescribes who may make an offer, the form through which information must be produced, notification requirements, continuing obligations and conduct requirements, while allowing only defined exemptions from that framework.\n\nThat is the wrong direction.\n\nI would significantly expand the exemptions, particularly for small offerings and experimental projects, and reconsider whether an arbitrary numerical threshold should determine when voluntary economic activity becomes presumptively subject to the full regulatory apparatus.\n\nThe present structure creates another problem: compliance costs are not neutral.\n\nLarge institutions can retain lawyers, compliance teams, consultants and regulatory specialists. Small builders cannot. Every additional mandatory process therefore creates a competitive advantage for actors already possessing capital and institutional access.\n\nThat is particularly difficult to justify when regulatory status itself has repeatedly failed to guarantee safety.\n\nEuropean supervisors continue to identify serious AML/CFT deficiencies, regulatory arbitrage and control failures within regulated financial institutions. The lesson is not that there should be no law. The lesson is that certification, licensing and compliance cannot be treated as substitutes for trustworthiness.\n\nThe relevant question should therefore be what vulnerability exists and what proportionate defence addresses it, not whether the participant has successfully passed through an institutional gate.\n\nThis is the difference between scaffolding and the cage.\n\nScaffolding would require enough truthful, inspectable information for another person to understand the vulnerability they are being asked to accept. It would establish consequences for deception, theft and breach of clearly assumed obligations. It would expose hidden authority and conflicts.\n\nThen it would leave room for people to decide. The current approach increasingly starts from the opposite presumption: the activity is restricted unless the participant demonstrates compliance with the architecture the regulator has prescribed.\n\nThat is effectively guilty until proven acceptable. It also creates a dangerous ratchet. Once the principle is established that participation requires satisfying an institutional gatekeeper, the argument becomes only about how many gates should exist and how demanding wful innovation may exist. I would therefore strongly preserve notification without prior approval and resist any movement toward a permission-first model. MiCA should start from a presumption that lawful activity is permitted unless a specific vulnerability justifies a specific restriction. The opposite presumption, that a new asset, protocol or business model is dangerous until an institution certifies otherwise, is the beginning of the cage described in my Trust Architecture work: formal choice remains, while the practical routes through which that choice can be exercised progressively disappear."
    },
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your ratings in question 3 b), focusing on the issues you deem most significant regarding the overall balance between investor protection, market integrity and innovation:",
     "page": 18,
     "text": "I believe Title II requires substantial redesign rather than incremental adjustment.\n\nIts fundamental problem is architectural.\n\nArticle 4 begins from the position that a person shall not make an offer to the public unless that person satisfies a prescribed regulatory structure. Freedom to experiment therefore becomes an exemption from a prohibition rather than the starting condition.\n\nI believe that burden should be reversed.\n\nThe starting presumption should be that people are free to build, offer, experiment, invest and voluntarily accept risk unless a specific activity creates a specific vulnerability that justifies intervention.\n\nFraud should remain fraud. Materially false representations should create liability. Misappropriation should create liability. If an issuer promises particular rights, reserves, governance arrangements or use of proceeds, those representations should be enforceable.\n\nNone of that requires the state to become the gatekeeper of the activity itself.\n\nThis distinction matters because disclosure can be useful without becoming permission. A simple, proportionate requirement to disclose who controls the project, what rights the asset represents, material risks, insider allocations, upgrade authority, custody arrangements and use of proceeds can provide valuable evidence to a prospective participant.\n\nBut the current architecture goes considerably further. It prescribes who may make an offer, the form through which information must be produced, notification requirements, continuing obligations and conduct requirements, while allowing only defined exemptions from that framework.\n\nThat is the wrong direction.\n\nI would significantly expand the exemptions, particularly for small offerings and experimental projects, and reconsider whether an arbitrary numerical threshold should determine when voluntary economic activity becomes presumptively subject to the full regulatory apparatus.\n\nThe present structure creates another problem: compliance costs are not neutral.\n\nLarge institutions can retain lawyers, compliance teams, consultants and regulatory specialists. Small builders cannot. Every additional mandatory process therefore creates a competitive advantage for actors already possessing capital and institutional access.\n\nThat is particularly difficult to justify when regulatory status itself has repeatedly failed to guarantee safety.\n\nEuropean supervisors continue to identify serious AML/CFT deficiencies, regulatory arbitrage and control failures within regulated financial institutions. The lesson is not that there should be no law. The lesson is that certification, licensing and compliance cannot be treated as substitutes for trustworthiness.\n\nThe relevant question should therefore be what vulnerability exists and what proportionate defence addresses it, not whether the participant has successfully passed through an institutional gate.\n\nThis is the difference between scaffolding and the cage.\n\nScaffolding would require enough truthful, inspectable information for another person to understand the vulnerability they are being asked to accept. It would establish consequences for deception, theft and breach of clearly assumed obligations. It would expose hidden authority and conflicts.\n\nThen it would leave room for people to decide.\n\nThe current approach increasingly starts from the opposite presumption: the activity is restricted unless the participant demonstrates compliance with the architecture the regulator has prescribed.\n\nThat is effectively guilty until proven acceptable.\n\nIt also creates a dangerous ratchet. Once the principle is established that participation requires satisfying an institutional gatekeeper, the argument becomes only about how many gates should exist and how demanding they should become. The wider MiCA review demonstrates precisely why that matters: similar reasoning is now being considered around DeFi certification, CASP access to protocols and even non-custodial software.\n\nThe exemptions in Article 4 should therefore be significantly expanded, while the mandatory framework should be rebuilt around actual harm, material representations and actual authority.\n\nI would preserve strong civil liability for materially false or misleading representations. I would preserve proportionate rules against deceptive marketing. I would support simple disclosure of facts necessary to understand an asset's actual trust architecture.\n\nBut I do not believe European citizens need a regulatory authority to determine in advance which disclosed risks they may voluntarily accept.\n\nTrust is willingly accepted vulnerability in the presence of risk. The proper role of regulation here should be to make hidden vulnerability visible, make deception consequential, and intervene where one party possesses authority capable of imposing involuntary vulnerability"
    }
   ],
   "note": "My copy-paste error. The first explanation box breaks off mid-sentence (“decides in advance which la…”) and runs into text that belongs to 3 b). The complete argument is in the 3 b) explanation below."
  },
  {
   "id": "4",
   "anchor": "q-4",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-4",
   "part_no": "1",
   "section": "1.2 Transparency rules and ex post supervisory control regime",
   "page": 20,
   "question": "Based on initial implementation experience under MiCA, please assess the extent to which the following issues remain a concern:",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Inadequate or non-comparable disclosure clarity or complexity to retail investors in Title II white papers",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (rather serious concern)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 20,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (rather serious concern)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Fraudulent or misleading crypto-asset offerings affecting EU investors",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (rather not serious concern)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 20,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (rather not serious concern)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Lack of clear and enforceable investor rights for crypto-asset holders",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (rather not serious concern)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 20,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (rather not serious concern)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Insufficient issuer governance or accountability in crypto-asset projects e.g. monitoring of the use of funds by issuers after the offering period",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "1 (not serious concern at all)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 20,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "1 (not serious concern at all)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Regulatory arbitrage, including activity shifting outside the EU",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (rather serious concern)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 20,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (rather serious concern)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Promotions by social media, influencers, sponsorships",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (rather not serious concern)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 20,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (rather not serious concern)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Post-issuance token value erosion or project failure affecting EU retail investors",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (rather not serious concern)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 20,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (rather not serious concern)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Market manipulation practices (e.g. wash trading, price manipulation) in crypto-asset markets",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (neutral)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 20,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (neutral)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Misaligned incentives between crypto-asset issuers and investors (e. g. insider allocations, weak lock-ups)",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (rather not serious concern)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 21,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (rather not serious concern)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Difficulty in assessing issuer quality and project credibility for EU investors",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "1 (not serious concern at all)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 21,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "1 (not serious concern at all)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Cross-border enforcement and supervisory coordination challenges within the EU",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "1 (not serious concern at all)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 21,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "1 (not serious concern at all)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Cross-border enforcement and supervisory coordination challenges with third countries authorities outside of the EU",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "1 (not serious concern at all)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 21,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "1 (not serious concern at all)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your ratings in question 4, focusing on the issues you deem most significant and add any additional issues that you deem highly important:",
     "page": 22,
     "text": "The most important risks are information asymmetry, hidden control and incentives that are not visible to the person accepting the risk. Disclosure should therefore reveal not only tokenomics but effective control: administrator keys, upgrade rights, insider allocations, vesting, governance concentration, treasury authority and material dependencies. A technically accurate white paper can still conceal the practical trust architecture if it does not show who can change what after the user has committed capital."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "5",
   "anchor": "q-5",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-5",
   "part_no": "1",
   "section": "1.2 Transparency rules and ex post supervisory control regime",
   "page": 23,
   "question": "Should additional measures either at the issuance stage or during the marketing and distribution of crypto-assets, be considered? Based on your experience or expertise, please evaluate the potential effectiveness of the following additional measures in relation to Title II crypto-assets.",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Marketing restrictions for high-risk or speculative crypto-assets aimed at retail investors e.g. restricting or banning the use of algorithmic or \"gamified\" marketing tactics for new token launches",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (slightly effective)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 23,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (slightly effective)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Lock-up periods (e.g. 12 months) or vesting schedules for founder and early investor tokens",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "1 (not at all effective)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 23,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "1 (not at all effective)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your ratings in question 5, and what (other) regulatory or supervisory actions you would consider useful either at the issuance stage and during marketing or distribution:",
     "page": 24,
     "text": "The burden of proof matters. Regulation should not begin by assuming that every new issuance or marketing technique is abusive and then require the issuer to prove innocence through institutional permission. Where there is deception, undisclosed insider advantage, market manipulation or a material conflict, regulate that conduct directly. Where founders promise vesting, make the promise inspectable and enforceable. But do not turn every legitimate concern into a universal restriction simply because restriction is administratively easier. Traditional finance already demonstrates why this distinction matters. Sophisticated actors have repeatedly found legal and regulatory seams unavailable to ordinary participants. Cum-Ex and Cum-Cum dividend- arbitrage schemes became serious enough that the EBA launched an inquiry and action plan, and later had to review how supervisors integrated tax-integrity risks. More rules do not automatically create equal protection when complexity itself becomes something well-resourced actors can navigate better than individuals. evidence by EU already available. EBA, inquiry into Cum-Ex/Cum-Cum dividend arbitrage schemes, 12 May 2020. EBA, Peer Review on Tax Integrity and Dividend Arbitrage Schemes, 6 February 2025."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "6",
   "anchor": "q-6",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-6",
   "part_no": "1",
   "section": "1.2 Transparency rules and ex post supervisory control regime",
   "page": 24,
   "question": "What administrative simplification or burden reduction measures should be considered under title II and its implementing measures and technical standards?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "",
     "page": 24,
     "text": "MiCA should be simplified wherever compliance asks the same fact to be proved repeatedly to different institutional actors. Every additional collection point creates cost, delay, gatekeeping power and another repository of sensitive information. Verification does not require possession. If a fact has already been reliably established, privacy-preserving credentials, attestations and selective disclosure should be usable wherever the legal objective can be met without another complete copy of the underlying identity or evidence. This is not merely an efficiency concern. Financial institutions are high-value cyber targets precisely because they aggregate financial and personal data. ENISA's threat reporting continues to show significant attacks against the finance sector. A rule that creates another compulsory database should therefore be treated as creating a new vulnerability, not merely as creating compliance. ENISA, Threat Landscape: Finance Sector, 21 February 2025. ENISA Threat Landscape 2025, finance-sector cybercrime dataset: data breaches represented 64% of cybercrime incidents in that dataset."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "7",
   "anchor": "q-7",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-7",
   "part_no": "1",
   "section": "1.2 Transparency rules and ex post supervisory control regime",
   "page": 25,
   "question": "Which specific categories remain most difficult to classify in practice? (e.g. hybrid tokens, wrapped assets, tokenised fund interests, tokenised money-market instruments, governance tokens, synthetic exposures, or assets marketed as NFTs but issued in series)?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "",
     "page": 25,
     "text": "The most difficult categories are those where the token's technical form says less than the legal and economic relationship behind it: wrapped assets, governance tokens, hybrid tokens and tokenised claims on off-chain assets. Classification should ask what right exists, against whom, who can alter it, what backs it, and what happens if the intermediary or bridge fails."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "8",
   "anchor": "q-8",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-8",
   "part_no": "1",
   "section": "1.2 Transparency rules and ex post supervisory control regime",
   "page": 25,
   "question": "Are the current Title II mechanisms sufficient to ensure meaningful updates to investors after issuance, including where project governance, tokenomics, vesting schedules or control rights change materially?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "No",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 25
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "No Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 8:",
     "page": 25,
     "text": "Material changes to governance, tokenomics, vesting, upgrade authority or control rights can alter the vulnerability a holder originally accepted. Those changes should therefore trigger clear, durable and machine- readable disclosure. A user should not have to discover after the fact that the trust relationship changed while the token name remained the same."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "9",
   "anchor": "q-9",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-9",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.1 The future role of stablecoins",
   "page": 27,
   "question": "Looking 5-10 years ahead, how strongly do you agree with the following visions for the role of stablecoins in the EU?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "A mainstream digital means of payment for retail transactions within the EU",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (rather agree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 27,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (rather agree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "A mainstream digital means of payment for wholesale transactions within the EU",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (strongly agree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 27,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (strongly agree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "A complement to existing payment instruments, used mainly in specific use cases especially in international, cross-border payments",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (rather agree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 27,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (rather agree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "A core infrastructure layer for the digital economy and tokenised financial markets especially for settlement",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (rather agree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 27,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (rather agree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "A niche or transitional product, eventually displaced by other forms of digital money (e.g. CBDCs or commercial bank money innovations)",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "1 (strongly disagree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 27,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "1 (strongly disagree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "No clear long-term role can be identified at this stage",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "1 (strongly disagree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 27,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "1 (strongly disagree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Others",
     "col": 6,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "Don't know - No opinion - Not applicable",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 27,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "Don't know - No opinion - Not applicable"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your answers to question 9:",
     "page": 28,
     "text": "Stablecoins are not a temporary anomaly to be contained until institutionally preferred digital money replaces them. They are an important experiment in separating money's functions: issuance, reserve management, redemption, custody, programmability and settlement no longer have to be controlled by the same institution. That separation is precisely why overly restrictive stablecoin regulation is dangerous. If reserve rules, licensing costs, geographic constraints and distribution rules make only a narrow class of institutionally approved structures economically viable, Europe can eliminate meaningful monetary experimentation without ever formally banning it. The relevant question is not whether stablecoins should be unregulated. It is which vulnerability requires which authority. Regulate reserves as reserves, redemption as redemption, fraud as fraud and custody as custody. Do not use those legitimate concerns to justify control of every layer beneath them. ECB Appia roadmap states central-bank money is to remain the anchor of the tokenised financial system and that Appia will shape the European ecosystem. Direction is right the execution is disturbing when Pontus is asked to preform all layers. ECB comprehensive payments strategy discusses EU-governed, properly designed and regulated stablecoins as complementary private settlement assets. Properly designed, is where I take some issue. Again, Pontus being a private blockchain is exactly the wrong design. This design makes Appia already a failed trust mechanism since it is built upon a compelled single source of failure or undemocratic choice in selection of the controlling group."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "10",
   "anchor": "q-10",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-10",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.1 The future role of stablecoins",
   "page": 29,
   "question": "The following question explores the current and potential benefits of stablecoins (both EMTs and ARTs) for different use cases. For each use case below, please indicate how beneficial stablecoins would be for EU users:",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "International payments (non-EU cross-border remittances or transfers)",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very beneficial)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 29,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very beneficial)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Intra-EU payments (domestic and EU cross-border payments)",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very beneficial)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 29,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very beneficial)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Crypto trading and liquidity provision",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very beneficial)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 29,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very beneficial)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Retail payments - Person to Person",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very beneficial)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 29,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very beneficial)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Retail payments – Person to Business (POI payment to merchants including e-commerce)",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very beneficial)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 29,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very beneficial)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Retail payments - Business to Business",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very beneficial)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 29,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very beneficial)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Wholesale payments (between financial institutions)",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very beneficial)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 29,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very beneficial)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Settlement of tokenised financial instruments (e.g., digital bonds, securities)",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very beneficial)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 29,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very beneficial)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Corporate treasury management",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very beneficial)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 30,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very beneficial)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Access to programmable or smart contract-based financial services (DeFi applications)",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very beneficial)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 30,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very beneficial)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Provision of financial services in underserved regions in the EU",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very beneficial)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 30,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very beneficial)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Others",
     "col": 6,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "Don't know / no opinion / not applicable (last column)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 30,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 6 of 6 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 30)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain shortly your assessment and expectations in question 10 as regards the benefits of stablecoins for EU users and, where relevant, any potential risks:",
     "page": 31,
     "text": "The largest benefit is optionality: stablecoins can provide interoperable settlement without requiring every user or application to belong to the same bank, platform or ledger. That optionality is itself a resilience property. Europe should be careful not to define 'safety' so narrowly that every safe route converges on the same licensed gateways and settlement anchor. A system with many compliant but genuinely independent routes is often more resilient than a system in which every route is supervised but shares the same failure domain."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "11.1",
   "anchor": "q-11-1",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-11-1",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.2 Prudential regime and capital requirements",
   "page": 32,
   "question": "To what extent do you think the calculation methods are relevant?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Minimum own funds of EUR 350,000",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (moderately relevant)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 32,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (moderately relevant)"
    },
    {
     "item": "2% of the average reserve of assets",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (moderately relevant)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 32,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (moderately relevant)"
    },
    {
     "item": "25% of the fixed overheads of the preceding year",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (moderately relevant)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 32,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (moderately relevant)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Additional own funds for “significant” tokens",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (moderately relevant)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 32,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (moderately relevant)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "11.2",
   "anchor": "q-11-2",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-11-2",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.2 Prudential regime and capital requirements",
   "page": 33,
   "question": "To what extent do you think the calculation methods are appropriately calibrated?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Minimum own funds of EUR 350,000",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (slightly appropriately calibrated)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 33,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (slightly appropriately calibrated)"
    },
    {
     "item": "2% of the average reserve of assets",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (moderately appropriately calibrated)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 33,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (moderately appropriately calibrated)"
    },
    {
     "item": "25% of the fixed overheads of the preceding year",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (slightly appropriately calibrated)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 33,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (slightly appropriately calibrated)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Additional own funds for “significant” tokens",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "1 (not at all appropriately calibrated)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 33,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "1 (not at all appropriately calibrated)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your answers to question 11.1 and 11.2, including your reasoning and any suggestions for recalibration or alternative approaches (e.g. greater risk sensitivity, differentiation by business model, or interaction with reserve and liquidity requirements):",
     "page": 34,
     "text": "I do not have sufficient issuer-level prudential data to recommend numerical recalibration of these thresholds. My recommendation is that capital requirements remain risk-sensitive and tied to the actual liabilities and authorities of the issuer rather than being used indirectly to privilege one technical architecture over another."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "12",
   "anchor": "q-12",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-12",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.2 Prudential regime and capital requirements",
   "page": 34,
   "question": "After being in effect for close to two years, no ARTs have been licensed in the EU under MiCA. In your view, does this absence primarily reflect low market interest in ARTs or other reasons? Please rate each factor below:",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Market interests for ARTs",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 5,
     "scale": "3 (neutral/ uncertain)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 34,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (neutral/ uncertain)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Licencing and regulatory requirements",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 5,
     "scale": "Don't know / no opinion / not applicable (last column)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 34,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 5 of 5 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 34)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your answers to question 12:",
     "page": 34,
     "text": "The absence of authorised ARTs should be treated as information rather than proof of one cause. Regulation may be one factor, but product-market demand and competition from EMT structures also matter. The Commission should examine whether the framework is protecting against a demonstrated vulnerability or simply making one architecture uneconomic before increasing or relaxing requirements."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "13",
   "anchor": "q-13",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-13",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.2 Prudential regime and capital requirements",
   "page": 35,
   "question": "If ARTs were to come to market, what do you think is the primary purpose from a consumer/investor perspective: investment or alternative means of exchange/payment? Please explain your answer:",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "",
     "page": 35,
     "text": "Where an ART is designed to maintain relatively stable value against referenced assets, its clearest consumer function is likely to be exchange, payment or settlement rather than speculative investment. The legal treatment should nevertheless follow the actual rights, redemption mechanics and risk accepted by the holder rather than the label attached to the token."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "14",
   "anchor": "q-14",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-14",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.3 Liquidity and reserve requirements",
   "page": 35,
   "question": "MiCA requires issuers of ARTs to establish, maintain, and prudently manage a reserve of assets and appropriate liquidity arrangements to ensure orderly redemptions and mitigate financial stability, liquidity, and operational risks. Additional and enhanced requirements apply to ARTs classified as “significant” under Article 45. How do you think, if at all, each of the following elements of the MiCA liquidity and reserve regime for ARTs should be adjusted? Please rate each aspect on a scale from 1 to 5, where “1” indicates that requirements should be significantly relaxed (e.g. lower liquidity buffers or remove specific obligations) “3” indicates that the current framework is appropriate and should remain unchanged “5” indicates that requirements should be made substantially more stringent (e.g. higher reserves, tighter risk controls, or enhanced safeguards) a) Please rate each aspect below as regard to non-significant ARTs :",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Obligation to constitute and maintain a reserve of assets covering redemption and liquidity risks (Article 36(1))",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (current framework appropriate)",
     "subpart": "a) Please rate each aspect below as regard to non-significant ARTs :",
     "page": 36,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (current framework appropriate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Liquidity composition and maturity structure of the reserve (Article 36 (4), RTS)",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (should be somehow relaxed)",
     "subpart": "a) Please rate each aspect below as regard to non-significant ARTs :",
     "page": 36,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (should be somehow relaxed)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Minimum amount of deposits held (30% and 60%) (Article 36(4), RTS)",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (current framework appropriate)",
     "subpart": "a) Please rate each aspect below as regard to non-significant ARTs :",
     "page": 36,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (current framework appropriate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Auditing requirements (Article 36(9))",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (should be somehow relaxed)",
     "subpart": "a) Please rate each aspect below as regard to non-significant ARTs :",
     "page": 36,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (should be somehow relaxed)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Custody requirements (Article 37)",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (current framework appropriate)",
     "subpart": "a) Please rate each aspect below as regard to non-significant ARTs :",
     "page": 36,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (current framework appropriate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Obligation to constitute and maintain a reserve of assets covering redemption and liquidity risks (Article 36(1))",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (current framework appropriate)",
     "subpart": "b) Please rate each aspect below as regard to requirements for significant ARTs :",
     "page": 37,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (current framework appropriate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Liquidity composition and maturity structure of the reserve (Article 36 (4), RTS)",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (should be somehow relaxed)",
     "subpart": "b) Please rate each aspect below as regard to requirements for significant ARTs :",
     "page": 37,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (should be somehow relaxed)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Minimum amount of deposits held (30% and 60%) (Article 36(4), RTS)",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (current framework appropriate)",
     "subpart": "b) Please rate each aspect below as regard to requirements for significant ARTs :",
     "page": 37,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (current framework appropriate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Auditing requirements (Article 36(9))",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (should be somehow relaxed)",
     "subpart": "b) Please rate each aspect below as regard to requirements for significant ARTs :",
     "page": 37,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (should be somehow relaxed)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Custody requirements (Article 37)",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (should be somehow relaxed)",
     "subpart": "b) Please rate each aspect below as regard to requirements for significant ARTs :",
     "page": 37,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (should be somehow relaxed)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Enhanced liquidity management, stress testing, monitoring, and reporting obligations for significant ARTs (Article 45(3)-(4))",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (should be made somehow more stringent)",
     "subpart": "b) Please rate each aspect below as regard to requirements for significant ARTs :",
     "page": 37,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (should be made somehow more stringent)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "b) Please rate each aspect below as regard to requirements for significant ARTs : Please explain your answers to question 14 a) and b), including your reasoning and any suggestions for recalibration or alternative approaches (e.g. greater risk sensitivity, differentiation by business model, or interaction with reserve and liquidity requirements):",
     "page": 38,
     "text": "I would not recommend broad numerical recalibration without prudential evidence. The important principle is diversification of dependency. Reserve rules should reduce redemption and credit risk without unintentionally concentrating reserves in a small number of banks and transferring systemic vulnerability there. Stress testing and transparent reserve composition are more defensible than architectural mandates that assume one custody or deposit structure is inherently safest. This also leaves open more diversified assets as backing."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "15",
   "anchor": "q-15",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-15",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.3 Liquidity and reserve requirements",
   "page": 38,
   "question": "MiCA sets out liquidity and reserve requirements for issuers of EMTs to ensure immediate redemption of tokens, mitigation of credit and operational risk, and resilience under stress scenarios. Additional requirements apply to EMTs classified as “significant” (Article 56). Should any of the following aspects of the MiCA regime for EMTs issued by e-money institutions be adjusted? Please rate each aspect on a scale from 1 to 5, where “1” indicates that requirements should be significantly relaxed (e.g. lower liquidity buffers or remove specific obligations) “3” indicates that the current framework is appropriate and should remain unchanged “5” indicates that requirements should be made substantially more stringent (e.g. higher reserves, tighter risk controls, or enhanced safeguards) a) Please rate each aspect below as regard to requirements for non-significant ARTs :",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Obligation to constitute and maintain a reserve of assets covering redemption and liquidity risks (Article 36(1))",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (should be somehow relaxed)",
     "subpart": "a) Please rate each aspect below as regard to requirements for non-significant ARTs :",
     "page": 39,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (should be somehow relaxed)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Legal and operational segregation of reserve assets from the issuer’ s own estate and from other token reserves (Article 36(2)–(3))",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (current framework appropriate)",
     "subpart": "a) Please rate each aspect below as regard to requirements for non-significant ARTs :",
     "page": 39,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (current framework appropriate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Liquidity composition and maturity structure of the reserve (Article 36 (4), RTS)",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (should be somehow relaxed)",
     "subpart": "a) Please rate each aspect below as regard to requirements for non-significant ARTs :",
     "page": 39,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (should be somehow relaxed)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Minimum amount of deposits held (30% and 60%) (Article 36(4), RTS)",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (should be somehow relaxed)",
     "subpart": "a) Please rate each aspect below as regard to requirements for non-significant ARTs :",
     "page": 39,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (should be somehow relaxed)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Auditing requirements (Article 36(9))",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (current framework appropriate)",
     "subpart": "a) Please rate each aspect below as regard to requirements for non-significant ARTs :",
     "page": 39,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (current framework appropriate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Custody requirements (Article 37)",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (current framework appropriate)",
     "subpart": "a) Please rate each aspect below as regard to requirements for non-significant ARTs :",
     "page": 39,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (current framework appropriate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Excessive exposure / concentration between bank and token (Article 36(4) MiCA) Do you consider the 1.5% binding limit adequate? (RTS)",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (should be made somehow more stringent)",
     "subpart": "a) Please rate each aspect below as regard to requirements for non-significant ARTs :",
     "page": 39,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (should be made somehow more stringent)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Obligation to constitute and maintain a reserve of assets covering redemption and liquidity risks (Article 36(1))",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (current framework appropriate)",
     "subpart": "b) Please rate each aspect below as regard to requirements for significant ARTs :",
     "page": 40,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (current framework appropriate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Legal and operational segregation of reserve assets from the issuer’ s own estate and from other token reserves (Article 36(2)–(3))",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (current framework appropriate)",
     "subpart": "b) Please rate each aspect below as regard to requirements for significant ARTs :",
     "page": 40,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (current framework appropriate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Liquidity composition and maturity structure of the reserve (Article 36 (4), RTS)",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (should be somehow relaxed)",
     "subpart": "b) Please rate each aspect below as regard to requirements for significant ARTs :",
     "page": 40,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (should be somehow relaxed)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Minimum amount of deposits held (30% and 60%) (Article 36(4), RTS)",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (current framework appropriate)",
     "subpart": "b) Please rate each aspect below as regard to requirements for significant ARTs :",
     "page": 40,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (current framework appropriate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Auditing requirements (Article 36(9))",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (current framework appropriate)",
     "subpart": "b) Please rate each aspect below as regard to requirements for significant ARTs :",
     "page": 40,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (current framework appropriate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Custody requirements (Article 37)",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (current framework appropriate)",
     "subpart": "b) Please rate each aspect below as regard to requirements for significant ARTs :",
     "page": 40,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (current framework appropriate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Enhanced liquidity management, stress testing, monitoring, and reporting obligations for significant EMTs (Article 45(3)–(4))",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (current framework appropriate)",
     "subpart": "b) Please rate each aspect below as regard to requirements for significant ARTs :",
     "page": 40,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (current framework appropriate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Excessive exposure / concentration between bank and token (Article 36(4) MiCA) Do you consider the 1.5% binding limit adequate?",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (current framework appropriate)",
     "subpart": "b) Please rate each aspect below as regard to requirements for significant ARTs :",
     "page": 41,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (current framework appropriate)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your answers to question 15 a) and b), including your reasoning and any suggestions for recalibration or alternative approaches:",
     "page": 42,
     "text": "The same principle applies to EMTs: the objective should be reliable redemption and resilient reserves, not compulsory dependence on a particular institutional layer. Requirements should be assessed for the vulnerability they reduce and the vulnerability they create elsewhere, including concentration of deposits in banks."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "16",
   "anchor": "q-16",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-16",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.3 Liquidity and reserve requirements",
   "page": 42,
   "question": "Under MiCA, credit institutions issuing EMTs are not subject to the reserve asset segregation requirements or the requirement to maintain a reserve of assets applicable to non-bank EMT issuers (Article 58 MiCA). This is consistent with the approach to the regulation of traditional e-money. Should MiCA be adjusted to introduce a requirement to maintain a reserve of assets and segregation requirements for reserve assets of EMTs issued by credit institutions?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "Others / alternative approach",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 42
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Others / alternative approach Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 16, including your reasoning and any suggestions for other/alternative approaches:",
     "page": 42,
     "text": "I would favor functional ring-fencing of the assets and claims necessary to protect EMT holders rather than automatically requiring a separate legal entity or reproducing the non-bank reserve model inside a credit institution. The question should be whether holders have clear, enforceable and insolvency-resilient rights, not whether every issuer uses the same organizational form."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "17",
   "anchor": "q-17",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-17",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.4 Criteria for determining significance",
   "page": 43,
   "question": "Do you think the following quantitative criteria thresholds used to classify EMTs or ARTs as “significant” should be adjusted, and if so how? Please rate each each quantitative criteria thresholds on a scale from 1 to 5, where “1” = Significantly decreased (thresholds should be much lower / classification triggered earlier) “2” = Somewhat decreased “3” = Kept as is (current MiCA thresholds are broadly appropriate) “4” = Somewhat increased “5” = Significantly increased (thresholds should be much higher / classification triggered later) a) Please rate how each quantitative criteria thresholds used to classify EMTs should be adjusted:",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Number of holders / users exceeding 10 million (Articles 43(1)(a) and 56)",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (kept as is)",
     "subpart": "a) Please rate how each quantitative criteria thresholds used to classify EMTs should be adjusted:",
     "page": 44,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (kept as is)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Total outstanding value / market capitalisation exceeding EUR 5 billion (Articles 43(1)(b) and 56)",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (kept as is)",
     "subpart": "a) Please rate how each quantitative criteria thresholds used to classify EMTs should be adjusted:",
     "page": 44,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (kept as is)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Transaction volume or value per day (average 2.5 million transactions and EUR 500 million) (Articles 43(1)(c) and 54)",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (kept as is)",
     "subpart": "a) Please rate how each quantitative criteria thresholds used to classify EMTs should be adjusted:",
     "page": 44,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (kept as is)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Number of holders / users exceeding 10 million (Articles 43(1)(a) and 56)",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (kept as is)",
     "subpart": "b) Please rate how each quantitative criteria thresholds used to classify ARTs should be adjusted:",
     "page": 45,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (kept as is)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Total outstanding value / market capitalisation exceeding EUR 5 billion (Articles 43(1)(b) and 56)",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (kept as is)",
     "subpart": "b) Please rate how each quantitative criteria thresholds used to classify ARTs should be adjusted:",
     "page": 45,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (kept as is)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Transaction volume or value per day (average 2.5 million transactions and EUR 500 million) (Articles 43(1)(c) and 54)",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (kept as is)",
     "subpart": "b) Please rate how each quantitative criteria thresholds used to classify ARTs should be adjusted:",
     "page": 45,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (kept as is)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your answers to question 17 a) & b), including your reasoning and any suggestions for other/alternative approaches:",
     "page": 46,
     "text": "I do not have evidence supporting numerical recalibration. Significance should not rely on size alone. A token's systemic importance also depends on concentration, substitutability, redemption dependency, interconnectedness and the authority its issuer can exercise over users or markets."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "18",
   "anchor": "q-18",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-18",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.4 Criteria for determining significance",
   "page": 46,
   "question": "Do you think the qualitative criteria used to classify EMTs or ARTs as “significant” under MiCA should be adjusted?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "Yes",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 46
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Yes No Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain how you think the qualitative criteria for classifying EMTs or ARTs as “significant” should be adjusted:",
     "page": 46,
     "text": "Qualitative criteria should explicitly consider concentration of dependency and substitutability. A token can become systemically important before a single numerical threshold captures it if essential settlement, collateral or payment activity becomes dependent on one issuer or infrastructure."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "19",
   "anchor": "q-19",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-19",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.4 Criteria for determining significance",
   "page": 46,
   "question": "Are there any additional criteria or metrics that should be added to determine “significant” tokens?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "Yes",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 46
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Yes No Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please specify which criteria or metrics and explain why:",
     "page": 47,
     "text": "Add measures of substitutability, concentration of settlement activity, reserve/custodian concentration, interoperability dependencies and the share of critical applications for which no credible alternative exists. Systemic significance is ultimately about correlated vulnerability, not only market capitalization or transaction count."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "20",
   "anchor": "q-20",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-20",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.5 Interest payment",
   "page": 47,
   "question": "In your view, should the MiCA prohibition on granting interest or any interest-equivalent remuneration be modified? a) for EMTs:",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "Yes, interest or interest-equivalent remuneration should be allowed fully",
     "subpart": "a) for EMTs:",
     "page": 47
    },
    {
     "choice": "Yes, interest or interest-equivalent remuneration should be allowed fully",
     "subpart": "b) for ARTs:",
     "page": 48
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Yes, interest or interest-equivalent remuneration should be allowed fully Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain why you think interest or interest-equivalent remuneration should be allowed for EMTs, (including any benefits and risks) and specify the conditions under which it should be permitted:",
     "page": 47,
     "text": "A blanket prohibition is another example of regulating the capability rather than the vulnerability. If remuneration creates maturity transformation, liquidity risk, misleading representations or an investment-like exposure, regulate those risks directly. The danger of prohibition-by-category is that it protects incumbent product boundaries from experimentation. The digital age should not reproduce a financial architecture in which sophisticated structures remain available to institutions and wealthy participants through complex wrappers while simpler programmable alternatives are prohibited for everyone else in the name of protection."
    },
    {
     "prompt": "b) for ARTs: No, interest and interest-equivalent remuneration should continue to be prohibited Yes, interest or interest-equivalent remuneration should be allowed under defined conditions Yes, interest or interest-equivalent remuneration should be allowed fully Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain why you think interest or interest-equivalent remuneration should be allowed for ARTs, (including any benefits and risks) and specify the conditions under which it should be permitted:",
     "page": 48,
     "text": "Same reasoning as above. EBA's continuing work on tax-integrity and dividend-arbitrage schemes illustrates that complexity in traditional finance has itself been used to exploit regulatory and tax seams."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "21",
   "anchor": "q-21",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-21",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.6 Redemption",
   "page": 48,
   "question": "Based on your experience either as a holder of EMTs or as an issuer of EMTs, how have redemption requests been processed and executed in practice by issuers or their agents? What practical problems, if any, have been encountered?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "",
     "page": 48,
     "text": "I do not have sufficiently direct issuer-level redemption experience to provide evidence on operational processing problems."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "22",
   "anchor": "q-22",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-22",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.6 Redemption",
   "page": 48,
   "question": "If you hold EMTs and wish to dispose of them, which of the following options would you most likely choose? a) In a normal market situation",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "I would likely spend them (e.g. on goods or services)",
     "subpart": "a) In a normal market situation",
     "page": 48
    },
    {
     "choice": "I would likely spend them (e.g. on goods or services)",
     "subpart": "b) In a stressed market situation",
     "page": 49
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "I would likely spend them (e.g. on goods or services) I would likely sell or exchange them with a broker or at a trading venue I would likely turn to the EMT issuer or his agent to exercise my statutory redemption right Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable b) In a stressed market situation I would likely spend them (e.g. on goods or services) I would likely sell or exchange them with a broker or at a trading venue I would likely turn to the EMT issuer or his agent to exercise my statutory redemption right Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 22 a) and b):",
     "page": 49,
     "text": "Normal market: exchange/spend. Stressed market: exercise the direct redemption right with the issuer. A redemption right matters most precisely when secondary-market liquidity and confidence are under stress."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "23",
   "anchor": "q-23",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-23",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.6 Redemption",
   "page": 49,
   "question": "For each of the redemption rights and rules listed below, please indicate whether the existing MiCA rules should be amended or specified or kept as they are. Please consider, in particular, implications for financial stability, consumer protection, and cross-border usability.",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Permanent right of redemption against the issuer, either at market value (ARTs) or at par",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 4,
     "scale": "Keep as is",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 49,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "Keep as is"
    },
    {
     "item": "Timing of redemption (timeframe for redemption by the issuer)",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 4,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 50,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 3 of 4 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 50)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Prohibition of redemption fees",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 4,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 50,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 2 of 4 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 50)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Conditions, procedures, and transparency of redemption policies",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 4,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 50,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 3 of 4 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 50)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Supervisory powers to intervene in or trigger redemption plans",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 4,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 50,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 2 of 4 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 50)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your assessment to question 23, including if a different approach is warranted for significant vs non-significant tokens, or in crisis scenarios and share any suggestions for adjustments you may have:",
     "page": 50,
     "text": "The right itself should remain strong and predictable. The most useful improvements are operational: clear timing, transparent procedures and evidence that reserves and redemption mechanisms work under stress. A nominal right that cannot be exercised when vulnerability materialises is not meaningful protection."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "24",
   "anchor": "q-24",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-24",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.7 Stability issues",
   "page": 50,
   "question": "Articles 46 and 47 require issuers of ARTs and EMT to prepare a recovery plan and a redemption plan in case an issuer cannot comply with reserve requirements e.g. due to significant and sudden requests for redemptions. Please indicate whether the current MiCA requirements are fit for purpose in those regards or should be amended: a) Current MiCA requirements for ARTs",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Recovery plans",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 4,
     "scale": "Keep as is",
     "subpart": "a) Current MiCA requirements for ARTs",
     "page": 51,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "Keep as is"
    },
    {
     "item": "Redemption plans",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 4,
     "scale": "Keep as is",
     "subpart": "a) Current MiCA requirements for ARTs",
     "page": 51,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "Keep as is"
    },
    {
     "item": "Recovery plans",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 4,
     "scale": "Keep as is",
     "subpart": "b) Current MiCA requirements for EMTs",
     "page": 51,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "Keep as is"
    },
    {
     "item": "Redemption plans",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 4,
     "scale": "Keep as is",
     "subpart": "b) Current MiCA requirements for EMTs",
     "page": 51,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "Keep as is"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "b) Current MiCA requirements for EMTs Please explain your assessment to question 24 a) & b), including if a different approach is warranted for significant vs non-significant tokens, and share any suggestions for adjustments you may have:",
     "page": 51,
     "text": "Recovery and redemption plans should be proportional to the scale and dependency created by the token. For significant tokens, plans should be tested rather than merely documented. The goal is inspectable evidence that the issuer can honor the vulnerability it has asked holders to accept under realistic stress."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "25",
   "anchor": "q-25",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-25",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.7 Stability issues",
   "page": 52,
   "question": "EMTs issued by authorised e-money institutions (EMIs) could potentially operate with enhanced monetary and financial safeguards. Please rate the appropriateness and desirability of the following policy options for EMTs issued by e-money institutions:",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Allowing EMT issuers to deposit their reserve assets directly into central bank accounts",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (mostly desirable) appropriate / desirable)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 52,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (mostly desirable) appropriate / desirable)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Providing clear rules that ensure the continuity of redemption rights (reserves are safeguarded for the benefit of token holders and are ring-fenced in insolvency, giving these holders an exclusive claim against those assets) in case of insolvency of the issuer",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (highly appropriate / desirable)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 52,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (highly appropriate / desirable)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Establishing a dedicated resolution regime for EMIs issuing EMTs",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (mostly desirable) appropriate / desirable)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 52,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (mostly desirable) appropriate / desirable)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Allowing emergency liquidity support / lender-of-last-resort (LOLR) facilities for EMIs issuing EMTs",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 52,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 3 of 6 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 52)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Others",
     "col": 6,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "Don't know - No opinion - Not applicable",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 52,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "Don't know - No opinion - Not applicable"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your ratings in question 25, including potential benefits, risks, or implementation challenges:",
     "page": 53,
     "text": "The strongest measure is clear insolvency-resilient ring-fencing for token holders. Direct central-bank reserve access may reduce intermediary concentration where appropriately governed. Emergency liquidity or resolution support should not socialise private risk without corresponding prudential obligations and accountability."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "26",
   "anchor": "q-26",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-26",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.7 Stability issues",
   "page": 53,
   "question": "How appropriate is it to require EMT-issuing EMIs to hold 30-60% of their reserve assets in bank deposits?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "1 - Not at all appropriate / desirable",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 53
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "1 - Not at all appropriate / desirable 2 - Slightly appropriate / desirable 3 - Moderately appropriate / desirable 4 - Mostly appropriate / desirable 5 - Highly appropriate / desirable Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your ratings in question 26 and add any suggestions for recalibration or alternative approaches:",
     "page": 53,
     "text": "I would not preserve a fixed 30–60% commercial-bank deposit requirement as the default architecture. This is the Trust Architecture problem in miniature. The rule is presented as reducing reserve risk, but it also compels stablecoin issuers to place a large share of their vulnerability inside the banking system. Regulation has not removed risk. It has selected the institution that will receive it. That choice requires evidence. It should not be presumed safe merely because the receiving institution is regulated. EU authorities themselves continue to report serious AML/CFT and operational weaknesses inside regulated financial institutions. From April 2024 to March 2025, the EBA's EuReCA reporting recorded 1,279 serious deficiencies or material weaknesses exposing financial institutions to ML/TF risk, most commonly involving customer due diligence, systems and controls, and suspicious transaction reporting. In the following reporting window, authorities still recorded 833 material weaknesses. The lesson is not that banks are uniquely unsafe. It is that regulated does not mean riskless. Stablecoin reserve regulation should therefore specify liquidity, quality, diversification and redemption outcomes rather than compel dependence on one institutional layer."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "27",
   "anchor": "q-27",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-27",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.8 Global stablecoins arrangements and interactions with other regulatory",
   "page": 55,
   "question": "What are the potential benefits of global stablecoins for different use cases? For each use case below, please indicate on a scale of 1 to 5 how beneficial global stablecoins would be for EU holders:",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "International payments (cross-border remittances or transfers,)",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very beneficial)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 55,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very beneficial)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Intra-EU payments (domestic and cross-border EU payments)",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very beneficial)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 55,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very beneficial)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Crypto trading and liquidity provision",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very beneficial)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 55,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very beneficial)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Retail payments - Person to Person",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very beneficial)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 55,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very beneficial)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Retail payments - Person to Business (POI payment to merchants including e-commerce)",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very beneficial)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 55,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very beneficial)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Retail payments - Business to Business",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very beneficial)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 55,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very beneficial)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Settlement of tokenised financial instruments (e.g., digital bonds, securities)",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very beneficial)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 55,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very beneficial)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Corporate treasury management",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very beneficial)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 55,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very beneficial)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Access to programmable or smart contract-based financial services (DeFi applications)",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very beneficial)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 56,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very beneficial)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Provision of financial services in underserved regions in the world",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very beneficial)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 56,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very beneficial)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Other potential use cases",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very beneficial)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 56,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very beneficial)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please specify to what other potential use case(s) you refer in your answer to question 27:",
     "page": 57,
     "text": "Democratized global savings."
    },
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your answers to question 27:",
     "page": 57,
     "text": "Global stablecoins are most valuable where money must cross institutional or national boundaries without rebuilding the settlement stack for every jurisdiction. Their benefit comes from interoperability and shared settlement. Their risk comes from concentrating dependency on a small number of issuers and reserve structures. Both facts can be true at once."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "28",
   "anchor": "q-28",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-28",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.8 Global stablecoins arrangements and interactions with other regulatory",
   "page": 58,
   "question": "How important is it for EU users (both people and businesses) to be able to access global stablecoins via EU-based and licenced issuers and CASPs?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "EU-based and licenced stablecoins Issuers",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (highly important)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 58,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (highly important)"
    },
    {
     "item": "EU-based and licenced CASPs",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (rather important)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 58,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (rather important)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your answers to question 28:",
     "page": 59,
     "text": "European users should not be placed behind a regulatory wall from global stablecoin liquidity. The EU can impose obligations on actors that actually provide regulated services to EU customers. It should not turn those intermediaries into universal permission gates controlling which lawful assets Europeans may hold or which public networks they may use. A CASP license should establish obligations for the CASP. It should not silently become a license for the customer's economic life."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "29",
   "anchor": "q-29",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-29",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.8 Global stablecoins arrangements and interactions with other regulatory",
   "page": 60,
   "question": "Based on your experience and assessment, how significant are the following risks associated [3] with a multi-issuance model of global stablecoins for the EU financial system? Under a multi-issuer model, the global stablecoin issuer operates subject to the requirements of the EU MICA framework for stablecoins offered or held in the EU (EU establishment, EU reserve requirements, redemption obligations, EU supervision) and the requirements of third country jurisdictions, if any, where it also issues or offers stablecoins. Protection of EU holders relies on EU prudential, operational, and consumer protection safeguards set out in MICA.",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Run risk and reserve depletion in the EU (e.g. cross-border migration of tokens during stress leading to sudden increase of redemption pressure on EU issuers)",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (rather significant)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 60,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (rather significant)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Unbalanced reserve distribution across jurisdictions (e.g. fragmentation of reserves between EU and non-EU entities)",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (rather significant)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 60,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (rather significant)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Cross-border reserve transfer restrictions (e.g. third-country limitations on moving reserves during stress events)",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (rather significant)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 60,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (rather significant)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Regulatory arbitrage due to fungibility of tokens (e.g. operation across regimes exploiting differences in prudential or conduct rules)",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (neutral)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 60,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (neutral)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Supervisory monitoring and data-tracking challenges (e.g. difficulty measuring EU-holdings, especially holdings in self-custodial wallets)",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (neutral)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 61,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (neutral)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Risks resulting from the stablecoin issuer home jurisdictions not having prudential or conduct rules that meet internationally accepted standards or that are significantly lower than those set out in EU law.",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (rather significant)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 61,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (rather significant)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Others",
     "col": 6,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "Don't know / no opinion / not applicable (last column)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 61,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 6 of 6 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 61)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain the reasoning behind your ratings in question 29. Describe the nature and importance of these risks, the underlying assumptions, market dynamics, or regulatory factors informing your view:",
     "page": 62,
     "text": "The material risks arise where fungibility masks different legal claims or reserve pools. Users should be able to know which entity owes them what, where the backing sits, and whether redemption remains enforceable under stress. The solution should focus on those claims and dependencies rather than attempting to infer the geographic identity of every self-custodied token holder."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "30",
   "anchor": "q-30",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-30",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.8 Global stablecoins arrangements and interactions with other regulatory",
   "page": 62,
   "question": "MiCA does not currently prohibit multi-issuer models, nor does the EU have jurisdiction to determine how third country entities, that also have licensed entities in the EU, should be regulated in third country jurisdictions. Given your assessment of the advantages or disadvantages of global stablecoins and multi-issuance models, do you think that MiCA should continue to be open to multi-issuance models?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "Yes, the multi-issuance model for stablecoins should be permitted under MiCA",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 62
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Yes, the multi-issuance model for stablecoins should be permitted under MiCA No, MiCA should disallow the multi-issuance model for stablecoins Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain the reasons for your response to question 30 and describe the potential implications for the EU market and relevant stakeholders:",
     "page": 62,
     "text": "Multi-issuance should remain possible if the legal claim, reserve responsibility and redemption obligation are clear to the holder. Prohibiting the model because cross-border trust is difficult would sacrifice interoperability rather than solve the underlying problem. The correct response is to make the trust boundaries inspectable."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "31",
   "anchor": "q-31",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-31",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.8 Global stablecoins arrangements and interactions with other regulatory",
   "page": 62,
   "question": "MiCA considers that all EMTs that are pegged to or denominated in an EU currency are offered to the EU and therefore fully subject to MiCA issuer requirements. a) Does this approach continue to be justified in view of market developments?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "No",
     "subpart": "a) Does this approach continue to be justified in view of market",
     "page": 63
    },
    {
     "choice": "Yes",
     "subpart": "b) Does it discourage the international role of the euro?",
     "page": 63
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "No Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable b) Does it discourage the international role of the euro? Yes No Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 31 a) & b):",
     "page": 63,
     "text": "Denominating a token in euros should not by itself make every issuance and use anywhere in the world an EU- regulated offering. There is a deeper strategic contradiction here. Europe says it wants the euro to remain internationally relevant, while simultaneously risking an architecture in which digital use of the euro is acceptable only when it enters through European-approved structures. Monetary relevance comes from people choosing to use a currency, not from making the currency a regulatory perimeter."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "32",
   "anchor": "q-32",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-32",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.8 Global stablecoins arrangements and interactions with other regulatory",
   "page": 63,
   "question": "What are the advantages and disadvantages of this approach for the EU and the international role of EU currencies?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "",
     "page": 63,
     "text": "The advantage is strong protection and a clear regulatory perimeter for EU users. The disadvantage is that an overly expansive perimeter can make euro-denominated digital money less attractive globally and push innovation toward other currencies. Europe should protect users without making use of the euro conditional on submission to an architecture designed for domestic distribution."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "33",
   "anchor": "q-33",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-33",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.9 Interaction with the EU’s economic security and the international role of",
   "page": 63,
   "question": "To what extent do you believe that euro-denominated stablecoins can contribute to the following objectives?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Strengthening EU payment autonomy in retail",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (to a moderate extent)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 64,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (to a moderate extent)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Strengthening EU payment autonomy in wholesale",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 64,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 4 of 6 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 64)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Enhancing the international role of the",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 64,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 4 of 6 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 64)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your answers to question 33:",
     "page": 64,
     "text": "Euro stablecoins can strengthen the international role of the euro if they remain usable across genuinely different infrastructures. Strategic autonomy becomes dangerous when it is allowed to mean institutional enclosure. The ECB openly describes Appia as shaping Europe's tokenised financial architecture, preserving central-bank money as the anchor and strengthening strategic autonomy. Pontes and Appia are described as one strategy, with Pontes ultimately becoming a core component of the Appia ecosystem. That may be a coherent institutional objective. It should not become the only economically viable architecture. Europe should compete by making the euro useful, interoperable and trustworthy, not by making alternative routes progressively harder to use. Pontes and Appia are the right idea and the wrong execution."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "34",
   "anchor": "q-34",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-34",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.10 Current safeguards in MiCA",
   "page": 65,
   "question": "MiCA provides safeguards to mitigate the risks of multi-issuance stablecoins. For each safeguard listed below, please indicate how effective you consider it to be:",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Restriction of widely used ARTs and EMTs denominated in a currency that is not an official currency of a Member State (Articles 23, 58)",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (rather effective)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 65,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (rather effective)"
    },
    {
     "item": "ECB binding opinion powers on withdrawing authorisation and limit the amounts of ARTs and EMTs (Articles 24(2)(3), 58)",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (moderately effective)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 65,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (moderately effective)"
    },
    {
     "item": "EU establishment requirement for ART and EMT issuers (Article 16)",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (moderately effective)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 65,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (moderately effective)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Reserve location, composition and liquidity requirements for ARTs and EMTs (Articles 36-38, 45, 54)",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (slightly effective)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 65,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (slightly effective)"
    },
    {
     "item": "The powers of competent authorities listed in Article 94, especially to suspend or prohibit the trading of crypto-assets",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (moderately effective)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 65,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (moderately effective)"
    },
    {
     "item": "National supervisory intervention powers (Article 105)",
     "col": 6,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "Don't know - No opinion - Not applicable",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 65,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "Don't know - No opinion - Not applicable"
    },
    {
     "item": "EBA temporary intervention powers (Article 104)",
     "col": 6,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "Don't know - No opinion - Not applicable",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 65,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "Don't know - No opinion - Not applicable"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your answers to question 34:",
     "page": 66,
     "text": "Safeguards are strongest when they address a specific vulnerability such as redemption, reserve quality or misrepresentation. Broad intervention powers and usage restrictions should be used carefully because they can create concentrated discretionary authority. The more powerful the control, the clearer its trigger, scope, evidence and appeal should be."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "35",
   "anchor": "q-35",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-35",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.10 Current safeguards in MiCA",
   "page": 66,
   "question": "MiCA requires that the reserves of the EMTs and ARTs issued, offered or held in the EU should be held in the EU. Can the tokens held in the EU be determined or estimated with sufficient accuracy and frequency?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "Partially, but with some limitations (e.g., delays, estimation challenges)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 66
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Partially, but with some limitations (e.g., delays, estimation challenges) No, current methods are insufficient for reliable compliance Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 35, including any specific remarks with regard to tokens held in unhosted wallets:",
     "page": 66,
     "text": "Hosted accounts can provide jurisdictional information. A self-custodial bearer asset generally cannot provide reliable residence information without attaching identity or surveillance infrastructure to the holder. That limitation should be accepted where it is intrinsic to the architecture. The solution cannot be to make every wallet persistently identifiable simply because regulation wants a jurisdiction field. IP addresses, metadata, device identifiers and transaction graphs already make privacy fragile. Requiring additional identity linkage increases the consequences of breach, coercion and physical targeting. The fact that information can be collected does not establish that an authority should possess it."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "36",
   "anchor": "q-36",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-36",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.10 Current safeguards in MiCA",
   "page": 66,
   "question": "Should MiCA redemption rights be explicitly limited to EU holders only?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "No",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 66
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "No Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 36:",
     "page": 67,
     "text": "A fungible token should not lose a core redemption right because it crossed an invisible jurisdictional boundary, particularly where determining the holder's location would require intrusive identity infrastructure. If an issuer has created a redeemable claim, the cleanest trust relationship is that the claim follows the token, subject to lawful sanctions and other specific restrictions."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "37",
   "anchor": "q-37",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-37",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.11 Potential additional safeguards",
   "page": 67,
   "question": "In a multi-issuance model, reserve assets may be located across jurisdictions and legal entities. Concerns have been expressed that in times of market stress, the transfer or rebalancing of reserves between issuers may be delayed or restricted. Is this concern valid or substantiated in your view?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "Valid-substantiated",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 67
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Valid-substantiated Not valid-not substantiated Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 37:",
     "page": 67,
     "text": "The concern is structurally valid. A multi-jurisdiction reserve creates dependencies on banks, legal entities, supervisors and transfer rules that may behave differently under stress. Those dependencies should be disclosed and stress-tested rather than assumed away."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "38",
   "anchor": "q-38",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-38",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.11 Potential additional safeguards",
   "page": 68,
   "question": "How effective would the following possible additional measures be in mitigating such concerns?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Introducing requirements that would favour or strengthen the redemption rights of holders of stablecoins that are genuinely circulating in the EU, as opposed to redemption rights associated with stablecoins transferred to the EU in times of stress to take",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "1 (highly ineffective)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 68,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "1 (highly ineffective)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Restricting direct redemption rights in the EU to holders who are clients of EU-authorised CASPs, while holders that keep the tokens in un-hosted wallets do not have a MiCA guaranteed redemption right in the EU.",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "1 (highly ineffective)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 68,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "1 (highly ineffective)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Differentiating redemption rights in crisis situations between retail and wholesale/professional holders",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "1 (highly ineffective)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 68,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "1 (highly ineffective)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Requiring a dedicated liquidity buffer or additional reserve tranche specifically calibrated to cover short-term redemption spikes in the EU",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 68,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 4 of 6 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 68)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Strengthening real-time or high-frequency reserve and liquidity reporting to EU competent authorities, including granular disclosure of reserve location and transfer constraints",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 68,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 4 of 6 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 68)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Establishing binding cooperation arrangements between home and host supervisors to ensure rapid approval and execution of cross-border reserve transfers in stress scenarios",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 69,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 4 of 6 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 69)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Others",
     "col": 6,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "Don't know / no opinion / not applicable (last column)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 69,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 6 of 6 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 69)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "",
     "page": 68,
     "text": "Don't\n\nadvantage of MiCA protections (including redemption rights)"
    },
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your answers to question 38:",
     "page": 70,
     "text": "I strongly oppose making a hosted wallet, CASP relationship or certified intermediary a condition for exercising a basic redemption right. That would turn self-custody from a legitimate ownership model into a second-class status. It would also create exactly the control loop Trust Architecture warns against: first impose identity and intermediation as a condition of access, then point to the resulting intermediated system as evidence that intermediation is necessary. If the concern is reserve distribution, disclose and stress-test reserves. If the concern is sanctions, enforce specific lawful sanctions. If the concern is fraud, prosecute fraud. Do not solve each problem by requiring every person to enter a permanent institutional relationship."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "39",
   "anchor": "q-39",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-39",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.11 Potential additional safeguards",
   "page": 70,
   "question": "If you referred in your response to question 38 to adjusting redemption rights, please provide any comments on the operational feasibility, legal implications, proportionality, or potential intended or unintended consequences of such amendments the redemption rights in MiCA as listed above or in any other way:",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "",
     "page": 70,
     "text": "Differentiated redemption rights would create an economic penalty for refusing institutional custody. That is not neutral consumer protection. It is an incentive structure designed to move people into a more controllable architecture. The walk-away test matters here. A choice is not meaningful merely because the law says I may self-custody if exercising that choice causes me to lose basic rights attached to the asset. The door can remain technically unlocked while the cost of walking through it becomes prohibitive."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "40",
   "anchor": "q-40",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-40",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.11 Potential additional safeguards",
   "page": 70,
   "question": "Do you see merit in introducing an equivalence regime for global stablecoins in the EU?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "Yes, in addition to mitigation measures",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 70
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Yes, in addition to mitigation measures No Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please provide reasons for your response to question 40, including any perceived advantages or disadvantages of equivalence regimes:",
     "page": 71,
     "text": "Equivalence can reduce duplicated regulation where another jurisdiction achieves genuinely comparable outcomes. It should be outcome-based rather than requiring institutional or technical structures identical to the EU model. Mutual recognition is itself a trust architecture: evidence of equivalent protection should substitute for redundant control."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "41",
   "anchor": "q-41",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-41",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.11 Potential additional safeguards",
   "page": 71,
   "question": "Equivalence regimes can rely on the third country’s regime to various degrees. How far, in your opinion, should a possible equivalence regime go in terms of relying on third-country regime? What rights or benefits should EU issuers derive from equivalence of a third country and what rights or benefits in the EU should issuers from an equivalent jurisdiction receive in the EU?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "",
     "page": 71,
     "text": "An equivalence regime should rely on third-country rules for prudential and conduct obligations where outcomes are demonstrably comparable, while preserving direct EU requirements for activities actually directed at EU users. Equivalence should be reviewable and evidence-based, not a political label or a demand that another jurisdiction copy the EU architecture."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "42",
   "anchor": "q-42",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-42",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.11 Potential additional safeguards",
   "page": 72,
   "question": "What administrative simplification or burden reduction measures should be considered under titles III and IV and their implementing measures and technical standards? Do you believe that MiCA level 1 provisions lay down proportionate rules for issuers of EMTs and ARTs?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Authorisation of ARTs and EMTs issuers",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (rather disagree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 72,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (rather disagree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Prudential requirements",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (rather disagree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 72,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (rather disagree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Governance arrangements",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (rather disagree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 72,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (rather disagree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Obligations in respect of specific crypto-asset services",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (rather disagree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 72,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (rather disagree)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your answers to question 42:",
     "page": 73,
     "text": "Reduce duplicate reporting and authorisation evidence, permit reusable verified information, and calibrate obligations to scale and actual authority. Simplification should not mean weaker accountability. It should mean asking for the same proof once rather than repeatedly collecting the same underlying data. This is the copy problem creating more attack vectors."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "43",
   "anchor": "q-43",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-43",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.11 Potential additional safeguards",
   "page": 74,
   "question": "Do you believe that below specified MiCA level 2 acts lay down proportionate and simple-to-apply rules for ART and EMT issuers, taking into account their different size, scope of activity and risk profile?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "RTS on complaint handling by issuers of ARTs (Article 31(5))",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (neutral)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 74,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (neutral)"
    },
    {
     "item": "RTS on the minimum content of governance remuneration (Article 45 (7)(a))",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (neutral)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 74,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (neutral)"
    },
    {
     "item": "RTS on the information to be submitted in an application for authorisation to issue ARTs (Article 18(6))",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (neutral)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 74,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (neutral)"
    },
    {
     "item": "COM Delegated Act on ART/EMT significance criteria (Article 43 (11))",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (neutral)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 74,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (neutral)"
    },
    {
     "item": "RTS on own funds for issuers of ARTs and EMTs (Article 35(6))",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (neutral)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 74,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (neutral)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please motivate your answers to question 43 and briefly explain what the problems are for your highest-rated issue(s) and suggest how they should be addressed (e.g. legislative clarification, supervisory guidance, industry standards):",
     "page": 75,
     "text": "I do not have sufficient issuer-level implementation evidence to score each RTS reliably. The general principle should be proportionality by actual risk and reuse of already-verified information rather than repeated documentary compliance."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "44",
   "anchor": "q-44",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-44",
   "part_no": "2",
   "section": "2.11 Potential additional safeguards",
   "page": 75,
   "question": "Do issuers identify any need to further standardise reporting requirements for issuers/information flow between CASPs and issuers for the purposes of MiCA?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "Yes",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 75
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Yes No Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 44:",
     "page": 75,
     "text": "Standardization is useful where it makes evidence portable and comparable. Reporting formats should be machine-readable and minimize duplicate collection. A common schema for reserve, redemption, control and material-risk information would improve accountability without requiring every participant to rebuild the same verification process."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "45",
   "anchor": "q-45",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-45",
   "part_no": "3",
   "section": "3.1 Crypto-asset services",
   "page": 76,
   "question": "Is the list of crypto-asset services as defined in Article 3(16) of MiCA adequate to effectively cover crypto-asset markets and provide sufficient legal clarity for businesses?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "Yes",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 76
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Yes No Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 45:",
     "page": 76,
     "text": "The service list must not become a mechanism for progressively converting every useful interface into a regulated intermediary. The key test is authority. Does the actor custody assets, execute on behalf of the user, make discretionary decisions, control settlement, or make material representations on which the user is expected to rely? If yes, obligations can follow that authority. If the actor merely publishes software, writes open-source code or gives the user a tool through which the user exercises their own authority, regulation should not manufacture an intermediary because an intermediary is easier to supervise."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "46",
   "anchor": "q-46",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-46",
   "part_no": "3",
   "section": "3.1 Crypto-asset services",
   "page": 76,
   "question": "If additional services should be added, what should those be and what requirements should be applied to these services and service providers? If you believe that certain services should be removed, please specify which ones and why:",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "",
     "page": 76,
     "text": "I would explicitly exclude neutral software development, protocol publication and non-custodial wallet creation from the CASP perimeter unless the provider separately exercises a regulated function. This is not a technicality. If regulation forces software developers to acquire control capabilities merely so that they can satisfy compliance obligations, regulation has changed the architecture. It has created the controller it then claims to regulate. Being identifiable is not authority. Being able to write code is not custody. Publishing an interface is not possession of the user's assets."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "47",
   "anchor": "q-47",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-47",
   "part_no": "3",
   "section": "3.1 Crypto-asset services",
   "page": 77,
   "question": "Would the introduction of appropriateness test for the crypto-asset services of reception and transmission, execution and placing of crypto-assets increase the protection for CASP clients, especially retail clients?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "No",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 77
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "No Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 47:",
     "page": 77,
     "text": "Appropriateness tests should not become another permission gate for adults using their own assets. Where a provider recommends a complex product, manages discretion or creates leverage, stronger duties can be justified. Where a person simply instructs an intermediary to execute a lawful transaction, the provider should not become a paternal authority deciding whether the customer is sufficiently sophisticated to exercise their own economic agency. Traditional finance already contains extensive gated categories, professional-investor distinctions and complex exemptions that are far easier for well-resourced actors to navigate. Digital finance should not reproduce that asymmetry by default."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "48",
   "anchor": "q-48",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-48",
   "part_no": "3",
   "section": "3.1 Crypto-asset services",
   "page": 77,
   "question": "The provision in the EU of crypto asset services covered by MiCA requires that the service provider is authorised under MiCA and complies with its requirements. Do you have evidence of non-EU authorised crypto asset services providers continuing to offer their services in the EU?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "No",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 77
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "No Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 48, specifying what in your view could be a relevant alternative:",
     "page": 78,
     "text": "A globally accessible protocol or website should not be presumed to be unlawfully soliciting Europeans merely because Europeans can reach it. The alternative is a European internet in which every global developer must either submit to EU permission or technically exclude Europeans. That is not technology neutrality. It is jurisdiction by accessibility, and it predictably favors large firms capable of maintaining global compliance machinery."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "49",
   "anchor": "q-49",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-49",
   "part_no": "3",
   "section": "3.2 Prudential requirements for CASPs",
   "page": 78,
   "question": "Is the prudential regime for crypto-asset service providers appropriate to capture the risks associated with the provision of crypto-asset services, or would it be warranted to adjust the prudential stance, e.g. by aligning it with the requirements for own funds applicable to investment firms (including K-factors) that provide services that are broadly similar? It is appropriate to capture the risks associated with the provision of crypto-asset services",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "It would be warranted to adjust the prudential stance",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 78
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "It would be warranted to adjust the prudential stance Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 49:",
     "page": 78,
     "text": "Prudential requirements should follow the vulnerability created by the service, not the regulator's desire for a familiar institutional form. A custodian controlling customer assets, an exchange holding counterparty exposure and a non-custodial interface are not variations of the same risk. Treating them as though they are selects for large incumbents able to absorb compliance costs while excluding architectures that deliberately remove custody and counterparty dependence. That is the opposite of risk-sensitive regulation."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "50",
   "anchor": "q-50",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-50",
   "part_no": "3",
   "section": "3.2 Prudential requirements for CASPs",
   "page": 79,
   "question": "Is the amount of minimum capital provided for each class of CASP listed in Annex IV of MiCA adequate or should it be recalibrated? Please rate each minimal requirement on a scale from 1 to 5, where: 1 = Significantly decreased (much lower than current MiCA requirements) 2 = Somewhat decreased (moderately lower than current MiCA requirements) 3 = Kept roughly as is (current MiCA calibration is broadly appropriate) 4 = Somewhat increased (moderately higher than current MiCA requirements) 5 = Significantly increased (much higher than current MiCA requirements)",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Minimum initial capital for Class 1 (EUR 50.000)",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (somewhat decreased)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 79,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (somewhat decreased)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Minimum initial capital for Class 2 (EUR 125.000)",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (somewhat decreased)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 79,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (somewhat decreased)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Minimum initial capital for Class 3 (EUR 150.000)",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (somewhat decreased)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 79,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (somewhat decreased)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your answers to question 50, indicating, if necessary, how the amount of minimum capital should it be recalibrated:",
     "page": 81,
     "text": "Capital can protect customers where a firm actually creates balance-sheet, custody or operational exposure. But capital requirements also operate as barriers to entry. The Commission should therefore be able to show which customer vulnerability each capital requirement covers. A requirement that simply makes small entrants nonviable while leaving the underlying risk unchanged is not consumer protection. It is market structure."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "51",
   "anchor": "q-51",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-51",
   "part_no": "3",
   "section": "3.3 Multi-function groups",
   "page": 81,
   "question": "Should the current approach be maintained or should there be enhanced oversight and coordination in relation to entities that in addition to providing crypto-asset services, offer (1) other unregulated services or (2) other types of regulated services, (3) a combination of crypto-asset services? What kind of action would be appropriate?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "The existing approach should be maintained",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 81
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "The existing approach should be maintained There should be enhanced oversight and coordination in relation to such entities Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 51:",
     "page": 81,
     "text": "Large traditional financial groups are evidence that institutional scale and regulatory status do not eliminate conflicts, money-laundering risk or sophisticated regulatory arbitrage. The EBA has continued to identify serious AML/CFT weaknesses inside regulated institutions, and its work on dividend-arbitrage schemes exists because complex, highly regulated markets still produced structures capable of exploiting legal and tax seams. The correct lesson is to supervise the actual concentration of authority and conflicts, not to assume that putting more activity inside a regulated group makes the system inherently safer. EBA, Operational risks and resilience: 1,279 material AML/CFT weaknesses reported in the 12 months to March 2025. EBA, Cum-Ex/Cum-Cum inquiry and 2025 tax-integrity peer review."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "52",
   "anchor": "q-52",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-52",
   "part_no": "3",
   "section": "3.4 Reporting",
   "page": 82,
   "question": "Should CASPs report regularly their activities?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Direct holdings of crypto-assets by CASPs",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 3,
     "scale": "Yes",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 82,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "Yes"
    },
    {
     "item": "Large exposures to derivatives with crypto-assets as the underlying asset",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 3,
     "scale": "Yes",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 82,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "Yes"
    },
    {
     "item": "Volumes of leveraged contracts and the extent to which leverage is actually used on trading platforms",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 3,
     "scale": "Yes",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 82,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "Yes"
    },
    {
     "item": "Information on counterparty risk",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 3,
     "scale": "Yes",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 82,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "Yes"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please specify what kind of reporting would be useful and how often? Please explain:",
     "page": 82,
     "text": "I answered yes, but. Supervisors should collect information that is necessary to observe a defined vulnerability. They should not collect everything that technology makes collectable. Every reporting mandate creates a dataset, a custodian and a future use case for that information. Financial and identity data are valuable attack targets. The presumption should therefore be data minimisation: collect what is necessary, retain it only as long as necessary, and require a clear purpose for expanding the dataset. ENISA finance-sector threat reporting; ENISA notes financial institutions process significant volumes of financial and personal data and remain high-value cyber targets. We do not want protections to increase blast radius."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "53",
   "anchor": "q-53",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-53",
   "part_no": "3",
   "section": "3.5 Environmental and sustainability reporting",
   "page": 83,
   "question": "Based on your experience to date, how do you assess the current environmental/sustainability disclosure regime under MiCA (including the relevant Level 2 RTS)? Fully appropriate and proportionate",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "Broadly appropriate, with limited areas for clarification",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 83
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Broadly appropriate, with limited areas for clarification Partially appropriate, but improvements could be considered Not appropriate Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 53:",
     "page": 83,
     "text": "Environmental disclosure is useful when comparable and decision-relevant. It should distinguish protocol-level consensus characteristics from the specific activities of issuers and service providers, and avoid repeatedly attributing the same network-wide footprint to every application using the network."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "54",
   "anchor": "q-54",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-54",
   "part_no": "3",
   "section": "3.6 Other issues",
   "page": 83,
   "question": "Given that crypto-asset service providers are entities subject to the regulatory framework of the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), are there any additional issues/challenges that need to be addressed in relation to cybersecurity?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "",
     "page": 83,
     "text": "Cybersecurity cannot be separated from the amount of power and information regulation concentrates. The EU can require stronger security controls and should. But a secure central repository of identity and transaction data remains a repository whose compromise, misuse or compelled disclosure can harm millions of people at once. ENISA continues to document significant cyber threats against financial institutions. This should make the Commission cautious about regulatory designs that require more identity data, more transaction metadata and more persistent linkage to be held by more intermediaries. The privacy question is not only whether the database is well protected. It is whether the database needed to exist in that form at all. ENISA Threat Landscape 2025 and Threat Landscape: Finance Sector (2025)."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "55",
   "anchor": "q-55",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-55",
   "part_no": "3",
   "section": "3.6 Other issues",
   "page": 84,
   "question": "The Payment Services Directive has been substantially reviewed recently, bringing notably more clarity on the interplay between the MiCA rules applying to the transfer services in relation to e-money tokens and the rules under the payment services framework which apply to the provision of payment services. As a result, the PSD3/R will clarify which crypto-asset services may qualify as payment services, including targeted exclusions from the scope of PSD3/R for specific types of transactions /exchanges involving EMTs, and will specify the authorisation process under PSD3 in cases where CASPs are required to obtain a PSD3 authorisation. Do you consider these changes bring sufficient clarity or are there other issues that remain to be addressed?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "Yes",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 84
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Yes No Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 55:",
     "page": 84,
     "text": "The objective should be one clear obligation for one real function. Where the same activity is simultaneously captured by multiple frameworks, the result should not be duplicate authorization or data collection. Clarification should continue to follow economic function and actual authority."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "56",
   "anchor": "q-56",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-56",
   "part_no": "3",
   "section": "3.6 Other issues",
   "page": 84,
   "question": "Do MiCA provisions governing crypto asset service providers sufficiently allow, or unduly restrict, access for EU consumers and investors to non-EU and global crypto asset trading and liquidity pools?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "Yes",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 84
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "56.1",
   "anchor": "q-56-1",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-56-1",
   "part_no": "3",
   "section": "3.6 Other issues",
   "page": 85,
   "question": "What are the advantages and disadvantages of focusing on EU liquidity or full access to global liquidity?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "",
     "page": 85,
     "text": "Europe should not mistake fragmentation from the rest of the world for sovereignty. If EU rules make global liquidity reachable only through a shrinking set of highly regulated gateways, those gateways acquire enormous power over what Europeans may buy, sell and use. The fact that the gateway is supervised does not remove that vulnerability. The EBA's own work on de-risking shows the predictable institutional response when compliance risk becomes too costly: institutions exclude categories of customers rather than manage the underlying risk. The same incentive can operate at the asset and protocol level. EBA, Opinion on de-risking, 5 January 2022."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "57",
   "anchor": "q-57",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-57",
   "part_no": "3",
   "section": "3.6 Other issues",
   "page": 86,
   "question": "Do you believe that the below specified groups of MiCA level 1 provisions lay down proportionate and simple-to-apply rules for CASPs, taking into account their different size, scope of activity and risk profile?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Authorisation of crypto-asset service providers",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (rather disagree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 86,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (rather disagree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Prudential requirements",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (rather disagree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 86,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (rather disagree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Governance arrangements",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (rather disagree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 86,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (rather disagree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Obligations in respect of specific crypto-asset services",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (rather disagree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 86,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (rather disagree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Other Title V rules",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (rather disagree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 86,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (rather disagree)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your ratings in question 57 and suggest how rules could be made simpler and more proportionate (e.g. legislative clarification, supervisory guidance, industry standards):",
     "page": 87,
     "text": "Proportionality should be measured against actual authority, not simply firm size. A small custodian can create custody risk. A large software publisher may create none. A protocol with an administrator key may contain concentrated authority. A widely used immutable contract may not. MiCA should stop treating institutional recognisability as a proxy for risk. The thing that can be licensed is not automatically the thing that should be controlled."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "58",
   "anchor": "q-58",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-58",
   "part_no": "3",
   "section": "3.6 Other issues",
   "page": 88,
   "question": "Do you believe that below specified MiCA level 2 acts lay down proportionate and simple-to-apply rules for CASPs, taking into account their different size, scope of activity and risk profile?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "RTS on complaint handling for CASPs (Article 71(5))",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (neutral)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 88,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (neutral)"
    },
    {
     "item": "RTS on offering pre-trading and post-trading data to the public (Article 76(16)(a))",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (neutral)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 88,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (neutral)"
    },
    {
     "item": "RTS on content and format of order book and records to be maintained (Article 76(16)(b))",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (neutral)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 88,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (neutral)"
    },
    {
     "item": "RTS on records to be kept of all crypto-asset services, activities, orders and transactions undertaken (Article 68 (10)(b))",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (neutral)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 88,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (neutral)"
    },
    {
     "item": "RTS on the continuity and regularity in performance of crypto services (Article 68 (10)(a))",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (neutral)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 88,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (neutral)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your ratings in question 58 and suggest how rules could be made simpler and more proportionate:",
     "page": 89,
     "text": "I do not have sufficient implementation evidence to score each technical standard reliably. Across Level 2, the priority should be interoperable reporting, avoidance of duplicate evidence and proportionality to the authority and vulnerability created by the service."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "59",
   "anchor": "q-59",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-59",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.1 Decentralised finance",
   "page": 89,
   "question": "In case you are aware or make use of DeFi currently beyond the regulatory perimeter of MiCA, what are the main services you (would) use and for which of them do you consider they bring benefits compared to similar intermediated digital assets services? a) Exchange services DeFi applications present limited interest and are moderately used for this service DeFi applications present important potential benefits for this service but their use remains limited due to some non-mitigated weaknesses DeFi applications present important benefits for this service and are already significantly used , despite important non-mitigated weaknesses",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "DeFi applications present important benefits for this service, they are already",
     "subpart": "b) Payments and transactions services",
     "page": 90
    },
    {
     "choice": "DeFi applications present important benefits for this service, they are already",
     "subpart": "c) Trading and investment services",
     "page": 90
    },
    {
     "choice": "DeFi applications present important benefits for this service, they are already",
     "subpart": "e) Custody services",
     "page": 91
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "DeFi applications present important benefits for this service, they are already significantly used and present limited risks Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable b) Payments and transactions services DeFi applications present limited interest and are moderately used for this service DeFi applications present important potential benefits for this service but their use remains limited due to some non-mitigated weaknesses DeFi applications present important benefits for this service and are already significantly used , despite important non-mitigated weaknesses DeFi applications present important benefits for this service, they are already significantly used and present limited risks Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable c) Trading and investment services DeFi applications present limited interest and are moderately used for this service DeFi applications present important potential benefits for this service but their use remains limited due to some non-mitigated weaknesses DeFi applications present important benefits for this service and are already significantly used , despite important non-mitigated weaknesses DeFi applications present important benefits for this service, they are already significantly used and present limited risks Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable d) Lending and borrowing services DeFi applications present limited interest and are moderately used for this service DeFi applications present important potential benefits for this service but their use remains limited due to some non-mitigated weaknesses DeFi applications present important benefits for this service and are already significantly used , despite important non-mitigated weaknesses DeFi applications present important benefits for this service, they are already significantly used and present limited risks Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable e) Custody services DeFi applications present limited interest and are moderately used for this service DeFi applications present important potential benefits for this service but their use remains limited due to some non-mitigated weaknesses DeFi applications present important benefits for this service and are already significantly used , despite important non-mitigated weaknesses DeFi applications present important benefits for this service, they are already significantly used and present limited risks Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please detail the benefits or weaknesses you associate with the use of DeFi applications for these different services in question 59, and the actions you would consider appropriate to optimise these benefits or address the possible issues they raise:",
     "page": 91,
     "text": "DeFi's most important contribution is not yield. It is architectural competition. It demonstrates that custody, execution, settlement, liquidity provision, lending and governance can sometimes be separated rather than bundled inside one institution. That does not make DeFi trustless. Smart-contract bugs, admin keys, oracle dependence, governance capture and economic exploits are real vulnerabilities. But the existence of those vulnerabilities does not justify rebuilding the intermediary that the architecture removed. Traditional finance has not earned a presumption of safety simply because its failures happen inside licensed institutions. EU authorities continue to record serious AML/CFT deficiencies in regulated financial institutions, regulatory-arbitrage problems and cyber incidents. Europol reports that criminal networks exploit weaknesses in financial systems using cryptocurrencies, money-laundering techniques and legal business structures. Crime routes around architecture. The regulatory question should therefore be: where is the actual authority and vulnerability in this particular system? Not: where can we insert a gatekeeper? The best lock in the world is an annoyance to the criminal but an impossible barrier to the just."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "60",
   "anchor": "q-60",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-60",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.1 Decentralised finance",
   "page": 92,
   "question": "What do you consider to be the main risks associated with DeFi?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Operational risk",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (rather agree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 92,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (rather agree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Money laundering and terrorist financing risk",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (rather disagree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 92,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (rather disagree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Market abuse",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (rather agree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 92,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (rather agree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Investor protection risk (information asymmetry, no redress, opacity of functioning)",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (rather agree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 92,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (rather agree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Financial stability",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (neutral)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 92,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (neutral)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your answers to question 60:",
     "page": 93,
     "text": "The risks are real. The asymmetry in how they are treated is the problem. A smart-contract exploit is treated as evidence that permissionless infrastructure is dangerous. A major failure inside a regulated institution is usually treated as evidence that the institution needs another control. MiCA should apply the same analytical standard to both. EU authorities recorded 1,279 serious AML/CFT deficiencies in financial institutions in the 12 months to March 2025. EBA reviews have continued to identify weaknesses in risk assessment and enforcement, and divergent supervisory approaches have created opportunities for regulatory arbitrage. None of this means regulated finance should be abolished. It means 'regulated' cannot be used as a synonym for 'safe'. DeFi should be judged against the risks it actually creates and the risks it removes, not against an imaginary traditional system in which licensing has eliminated crime, failure and corruption."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "61",
   "anchor": "q-61",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-61",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.1 Decentralised finance",
   "page": 94,
   "question": "In case you consider the criteria for establishing whether a DeFi application is not fully decentralised not sufficiently clear, which of them should do you consider should be used to assess the degree of decentralisation?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Existence of an identifiable intermediary (person or group of persons) providing a crypto-asset service",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (rather agree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 94,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (rather agree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Presence of control by an identifiable person e or group of persons (e.g. via admin keys) over the key functionalities of a DeFi protocol (e.g. upgradeability of protocol)",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (rather agree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 94,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (rather agree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Significant concentration of governance power over the key functionalities of a DeFi protocol",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (strongly agree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 94,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (strongly agree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Custody of user assets by the DeFi protocol",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (neutral)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 94,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (neutral)"
    },
    {
     "item": "DeFi protocol code is not open source",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (rather agree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 94,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (rather agree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Marketing of a DeFi protocol by an identifiable entity or person",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "1 (strongly disagree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 94,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "1 (strongly disagree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Other",
     "col": 6,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "Don't know - No opinion - Not applicable",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 94,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "Don't know - No opinion - Not applicable"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your answers to question 61:",
     "page": 95,
     "text": "Decentralization must be judged by effective authority. Who can seize assets? Who can change the rules? Who holds administrator keys? Who can upgrade the contract? Who controls governance? Who can prevent a transaction? Who can reverse one? Those are regulatory facts. The identity of a developer is not. The existence of a website is not. Marketing is not. If regulation treats identifiability as control, it will manufacture intermediaries by imposing duties on whoever can be found. That is administratively convenient and architecturally destructive."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "62",
   "anchor": "q-62",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-62",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.1 Decentralised finance",
   "page": 95,
   "question": "Do you believe that risks to users of fully decentralised DeFi protocols should be indirectly accounted for by MiCA, e.g. by requiring CASPs to conduct due diligence over DeFi protocols they connect their clients with, or in any other way?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "No",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 95
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "No Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 62:",
     "page": 95,
     "text": "No. This proposal is the clearest example of control creep in the review. If a protocol is genuinely decentralised, MiCA should not solve the regulator's inability to control it by controlling every regulated gateway through which Europeans can reach it. That does not regulate the protocol's vulnerability. It creates a new authority: the CASP becomes the institution deciding which lawful protocols the user may access. Europe does not need to ban permissionless finance if it can make every practical gateway ask permission on the user's behalf. The Commission should recognize the cumulative architecture being created. CASPs are licensed. Stablecoin issuers are heavily constrained. The review then considers certification of DeFi and non-custodial software and restrictions on CASP connectivity. At the same time, the Eurosystem is openly shaping the architecture, standards and governance of Europe's tokenized financial ecosystem through Pontes and Appia while preserving central-bank money as its anchor. Taken together, this is not neutral scaffolding around an open system. It is an emerging permission architecture. The walk-away test is simple: can an individual reject the institutional gateway and still retain a practical lawful route to use their own assets? If the answer progressively becomes no, formal freedom remains while meaningful freedom disappears. ECB, Appia roadmap, 11 March 2026: Appia will 'shape' development of the European tokenised financial ecosystem and preserve central-bank money as anchor. ECB, 23 March 2026: Pontes and Appia 'form a single strategy'; Pontes is expected to become a core component of the Appia ecosystem."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "63",
   "anchor": "q-63",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-63",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.1 Decentralised finance",
   "page": 96,
   "question": "Do you support introducing certification schemes for DeFi protocols and smart contracts?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "No",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 96
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "No Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 63:",
     "page": 96,
     "text": "No. Mandatory certification reverses the presumption that should govern an open society. The protocol becomes guilty until an approved institution proves it innocent. Certification is not safety. Europe already has highly regulated financial institutions, extensive AML rules, prudential supervision and data-protection law, yet EU authorities continue to document money-laundering control failures, regulatory arbitrage, tax-integrity problems and major cyber threats. The lesson is not that certification is useless. It is that certification is evidence, not absolution. A voluntary certificate can tell me who inspected the code, what they inspected and what they found. The moment the certificate becomes the legal condition for access, the certifier becomes a gatekeeper. The vulnerability has moved from the protocol into the certification institution. That is precisely the kind of trust transfer MiCA should be required to analyze before imposing it, and then rightly reject. Here a standard can be beneficial, so long as it is open to change over time as evidence arises."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "64",
   "anchor": "q-64",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-64",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.1 Decentralised finance",
   "page": 97,
   "question": "Which of the following statements about potential certification schemes of DeFi protocols do you agree with?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Instead of a full CASP licence, DeFi protocols that are not fully decentralised should be required to obtain a certification before or soon after making the protocol available to the public",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "1 (strongly disagree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 97,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "1 (strongly disagree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "To obtain their certificate, DeFi protocols that are not fully decentralised should be required to integrate specific compliance tools in the design of their protocols",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "1 (strongly disagree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 97,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "1 (strongly disagree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "DeFi protocols and software developers offering the possibility to create and use non-custodial wallets should be required to obtain a certificate before making these wallets available to the public",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "1 (strongly disagree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 97,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "1 (strongly disagree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "DeFi protocols and software developers offering the possibility to create and use non-custodial wallets should be incentivised to obtain a certificate",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "1 (strongly disagree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 97,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "1 (strongly disagree)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your answers to question 64:",
     "page": 98,
     "text": "I strongly oppose these proposals. A non-custodial wallet is a tool through which an individual exercises their own authority. Requiring institutional certification of that tool before it may be distributed or used reverses the relationship. The individual no longer begins with authority over their own asset. Their ability to exercise that authority becomes conditional on institutional approval of the software. Embedded compliance creates the same problem at the protocol layer. It can force neutral infrastructure to acquire surveillance, blocking or identity functions it did not previously possess. Regulation then points to those newly created control functions as the place where regulatory obligations should sit. This is not regulating an existing intermediary. It is manufacturing one. It also creates security consequences. Persistent wallet identity, IP metadata, location data and transaction linkage can make individuals easier to profile, coerce or physically target. Data minimization is therefore not merely a privacy preference. It is personal security architecture."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "65",
   "anchor": "q-65",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-65",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.1 Decentralised finance",
   "page": 99,
   "question": "Which of the following statements about potential certification schemes of DeFi protocols or smart contracts do you agree with?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Certificates should be issued by qualified private sector entities",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (strongly agree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 99,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (strongly agree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Certificates should be issued by qualified public sector entities",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (rather disagree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 99,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (rather disagree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Any interested party (e.g. persons providing connectivity to or participating in governance of DeFi protocols) should have the possibility to ask for the certification of a fully decentralised DeFi protocol",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (strongly agree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 99,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (strongly agree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Only fully decentralised DeFi protocols that reach a certain significance (e.g. based on total value locked) should be required to obtain a certificate",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (neutral)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 99,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (neutral)"
    },
    {
     "item": "CASPs should not be allowed to connect clients with DeFi protocols that are not certified",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "1 (strongly disagree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 99,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "1 (strongly disagree)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your answers to question 65:",
     "page": 100,
     "text": "Certification should be plural, voluntary and contestable. The proposal to prevent CASPs from connecting users to uncertified protocols is particularly dangerous because it converts an informational tool into access control. The sequence is predictable: First certification is useful evidence. Then certified systems are treated as safer. Then regulated institutions are discouraged from touching uncertified systems. Then access to uncertified systems becomes a compliance risk. Eventually the individual remains legally free to use the protocol while every practical regulated route to it has disappeared. That is the Double-Edged Sword problem. No single step needs to announce capture. The assembled architecture produces it. A strong trust architecture permits multiple independent assessments and lets evidence accumulate. It does not appoint one master authority whose absence of approval becomes proof of danger."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "66",
   "anchor": "q-66",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-66",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.2 Staking, lending and borrowing of crypto-assets",
   "page": 100,
   "question": "Do you think the current approach whereby staking services are not separately regulated is adequate?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "Yes",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 100
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Yes No Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 66:",
     "page": 101,
     "text": "Staking should not become another excuse to regulate a protocol function as though it were automatically an intermediated financial service. Where a provider takes custody, pools assets, makes guarantees, exercises discretion or misrepresents risk, regulate those actions. Where a person directly participates in a protocol with their own assets, the absence of an intermediary should be respected rather than treated as a regulatory defect."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "67",
   "anchor": "q-67",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-67",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.2 Staking, lending and borrowing of crypto-assets",
   "page": 101,
   "question": "Do you think that lending and borrowing of crypto-assets should be regulated?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "No",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 101
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "No Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 67:",
     "page": 101,
     "text": "Do not regulate 'crypto lending' as though the technical substrate itself creates the vulnerability. If an intermediary takes custody, rehypothecates assets, sets discretionary terms, obscures conflicts or makes misleading representations, regulate those acts. If autonomous code matches willing counterparties without custody or discretionary control, forcing a license onto an identifiable developer does not make the transaction safer. It merely gives the state someone to punish. This distinction matters because traditional regulated finance has not eliminated lending abuse, money laundering, tax arbitrage or unequal access. The EBA continues to report material AML/CFT weaknesses in regulated financial institutions, and Europol continues to document criminals exploiting legal business structures as well as cryptocurrencies. The answer to imperfect decentralized systems cannot be to reproduce the weaknesses of the incumbent system while removing the individual's ability to walk away from it."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "68",
   "anchor": "q-68",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-68",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.3 Non-fungible tokens",
   "page": 101,
   "question": "In your view, does the current state of the NFT market and the risks and opportunities associated with it justify regulating providers of services related to these tokens?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "No",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 101
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "No Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 68:",
     "page": 102,
     "text": "NFTs should not become a regulated financial category merely because they use the same technical substrate as financial crypto-assets. Where an NFT is functionally a financial instrument or a service involves custody, fraud or regulated financial activity, existing functional rules can apply. Regulation should follow the right and vulnerability, not the file format."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "69",
   "anchor": "q-69",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-69",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.4 Prediction markets and perpetual futures",
   "page": 102,
   "question": "Do prediction markets present opportunities or risks for EU consumer and investors?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "Yes",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 102
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Yes No Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please elaborate on your answer to question 69:",
     "page": 102,
     "text": "Prediction markets can aggregate dispersed information and provide useful signals, but they also create manipulation, consumer-protection and market-integrity risks depending on the market and operator. The DLT implementation is not itself the defining risk. Regulation should focus on the economic activity and the authority exercised by the operator."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "70",
   "anchor": "q-70",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-70",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.4 Prediction markets and perpetual futures",
   "page": 102,
   "question": "Should prediction markets, where they are DLT enabled and facilitated through smart contracts be governed by MiFID or MiCA?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "By MiFID",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 102
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "By MiFID By MiCA Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 70:",
     "page": 103,
     "text": "The governing regime should follow the economic nature of the contract. Using a smart contract does not turn a wager or derivative into a different economic activity. Technology neutrality requires the same activity to receive comparable treatment regardless of settlement technology."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "71",
   "anchor": "q-71",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-71",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.4 Prediction markets and perpetual futures",
   "page": 103,
   "question": "What substantive requirements should be considered for service providers that provide prediction market services?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "",
     "page": 103,
     "text": "Requirements should focus on market integrity, truthful resolution criteria, custody where applicable, conflicts of interest, manipulation and clear disclosure of how outcomes are determined. The resolver/oracle is a critical trust point and should be transparent and contestable where possible."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "72",
   "anchor": "q-72",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-72",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.4 Prediction markets and perpetual futures",
   "page": 103,
   "question": "Should perpetual futures on crypto-assets and services towards such perpetual futures be governed by MiCA or MiFID.",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "By MiFID",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 103
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "By MiFID By MiCA Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 72:",
     "page": 103,
     "text": "Perpetual futures are economically derivatives. Their use of crypto-assets as an underlying or DLT as infrastructure should not move them into a different regulatory logic. Technology neutrality argues for MiFID treatment where the product is functionally a derivative."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "73",
   "anchor": "q-73",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-73",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.4 Prediction markets and perpetual futures",
   "page": 103,
   "question": "What substantive requirements should be considered for perpetual futures on crypto-assets and service providers providing service for such perpetual futures?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "",
     "page": 104,
     "text": "Apply requirements appropriate to leveraged derivatives: margin, liquidation transparency, conflicts, market integrity, custody and clear risk disclosure. Particular attention should be paid to oracle design and liquidation mechanisms because these are technical trust dependencies that can materially alter the user's exposure."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "74",
   "anchor": "q-74",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-74",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.5 Tokenised deposits",
   "page": 105,
   "question": "Tokenised deposits could be deployed in support of a range of use cases across payments, capital markets, and on-chain financial activities. Based on your experience and expectations, please assess the potential relevance and benefit of tokenised deposits for each of the following use cases in the EU:",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Person to person payments",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very high relevance / transfor- mative benefit)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 105,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very high relevance / transfor- mative benefit)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Retail POI payments (domestic, day-to-day point of interaction transactions)",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very high relevance / transfor- mative benefit)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 105,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very high relevance / transfor- mative benefit)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Intra-EU cross-border payments (non-POI)",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very high relevance / transfor- mative benefit)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 105,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very high relevance / transfor- mative benefit)"
    },
    {
     "item": "International payments and remittances (third countries)",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very high relevance / transfor- mative benefit)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 105,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very high relevance / transfor- mative benefit)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Settlement of tokenised securities and other financial instruments",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very high relevance / transfor- mative benefit)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 105,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very high relevance / transfor- mative benefit)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Delivery-versus-payment (DvP) and atomic settlement",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very high relevance / transfor- mative benefit)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 105,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very high relevance / transfor- mative benefit)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Intraday liquidity management (real-time funding and liquidity optimisation)",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very high relevance / transfor- mative benefit)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 105,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very high relevance / transfor- mative benefit)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Treasury and liquidity management services for corporates and financial institutions",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very high relevance / transfor- mative benefit)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 106,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very high relevance / transfor- mative benefit)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Programmable payments and smart-contract-based use cases",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very high relevance / transfor- mative benefit)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 106,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very high relevance / transfor- mative benefit)"
    },
    {
     "item": "On-chain collateral or margining in regulated markets",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 106,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 4 of 6 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 106)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Improved settlement speed and operational efficiency",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very high relevance / transfor- mative benefit)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 106,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very high relevance / transfor- mative benefit)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Reduction of counterparty and settlement risk",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (very high relevance / transfor- mative benefit)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 106,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (very high relevance / transfor- mative benefit)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your answers to question 74:",
     "page": 107,
     "text": "Tokenized deposits can be useful, particularly for wholesale settlement. The danger is that their usefulness becomes an argument for rebuilding digital finance around bank membership. A tokenized deposit remains a bank liability. If it can only circulate among customers of the issuing bank or inside institutionally controlled infrastructure, tokenization has changed the technology without changing the trust architecture. The more interesting future is interoperability among genuinely different forms of money and settlement, where users and institutions can choose which vulnerabilities they are willing to accept."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "75",
   "anchor": "q-75",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-75",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.5 Tokenised deposits",
   "page": 107,
   "question": "Please select one or two use cases and benefits above that you consider most promising in the EU: Maximum 2 selection(s) Please select as many answers as you like Person to person payments Retail POI payments (domestic, day-to-day point of interaction transactions) Intra-EU cross-border payments (non-POI) International payments and remittances (third countries) Settlement of tokenised securities and other financial instruments",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "Delivery-versus-payment (DvP) and atomic settlement",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 107
    },
    {
     "choice": "Intraday liquidity management (real-time funding and liquidity optimisation)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 107
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Delivery-versus-payment (DvP) and atomic settlement Intraday liquidity management (real-time funding and liquidity optimisation) Treasury and liquidity management services for corporates and financial institutions Programmable payments and smart-contract-based use cases On-chain collateral or margining in regulated markets Improved settlement speed and operational efficiency Reduction of counterparty and settlement risk Please explain why the case(s) you selected in your answer to question 75 are the most promising in the EU:",
     "page": 107,
     "text": "Delivery-versus-payment and intraday liquidity management are the most promising because they directly reduce time-based counterparty vulnerability. Atomic settlement can replace a period of trust in future performance with verifiable simultaneous exchange. That is exactly where cryptographic infrastructure adds value."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "76",
   "anchor": "q-76",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-76",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.5 Tokenised deposits",
   "page": 108,
   "question": "What factors, if any, constrain the development and uptake of tokenised deposits in the EU?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "",
     "page": 108,
     "text": "The largest constraints are fragmentation, interoperability, uncertain legal treatment, limited common settlement infrastructure and the temptation for each institution or jurisdiction to build another closed network. Tokenization adds little if every tokenized deposit can only move inside its issuer's private domain."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "77",
   "anchor": "q-77",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-77",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.5 Tokenised deposits",
   "page": 108,
   "question": "If you identify any regulatory issue(s) in your answer to the previous question, please indicate what regulatory action is appropriate to address the issue(s) identified:",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "",
     "page": 108,
     "text": "The EU should provide legal certainty and interoperability without prescribing the topology of the network. This is especially important because the Eurosystem is simultaneously developing Pontes and Appia and openly describes Appia as shaping Europe's tokenized financial ecosystem. The ECB has said Pontes and Appia form a single strategy and that Pontes may evolve into a core component of the Appia ecosystem. That makes architectural neutrality more, not less, important. Public, private, permissioned and permissionless systems should be allowed to demonstrate equivalent outcomes. The institution designing one major settlement route should not, through regulation, also determine that competing routes are illegitimate."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "78",
   "anchor": "q-78",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-78",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.5 Tokenised deposits",
   "page": 108,
   "question": "Do tokenised deposits raise any specific issues under the CRD /CRR framework?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "No",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 108
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "No Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 78:",
     "page": 109,
     "text": "I do not have sufficient prudential data to recommend CRD/CRR recalibration. The core principle is that tokenization should not change the underlying prudential treatment merely because the record of the deposit moves to DLT, unless the new architecture creates a demonstrably different operational or liquidity vulnerability."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "79",
   "anchor": "q-79",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-79",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.5 Tokenised deposits",
   "page": 109,
   "question": "Do tokenised deposits raise any questions and challenges from a deposit insurance perspective?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "No",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 109
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "No Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to question 79:",
     "page": 109,
     "text": "Deposit insurance should attach clearly to the legal claim, not become ambiguous because the claim is represented by a token. Users should be able to know whether a tokenized deposit is insured, against which bank, and whether transferring the token changes that status. The ledger should clarify the trust relationship, not obscure it."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "80",
   "anchor": "q-80",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-80",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.6 Legal treatment of tokens",
   "page": 110,
   "question": "Is there legal uncertainty as to the private law treatment of issuance, holding and transfers of tokens, under national law?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "Yes",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 110
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "80.1",
   "anchor": "q-80-1",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-80-1",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.6 Legal treatment of tokens",
   "page": 110,
   "question": "Which of the following issues are most significant?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "crypto-asset token in compliance",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (moderate)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 110,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (moderate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "tokenised financial instrument in compliance",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (moderate)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 110,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (moderate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "earmarking etc) over a token,",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 111,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 2 of 6 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 111)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Recognising ownership in a token towards third-parties",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (moderate)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 111,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (moderate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Using tokens as collateral",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 111,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 4 of 6 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 111)"
    },
    {
     "item": "differentiate between native and non-native",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (moderate)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 111,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (moderate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Recognising tokens as objects of",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 111,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 4 of 6 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 111)"
    },
    {
     "item": "token holders in intermediated",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 111,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 4 of 6 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 111)"
    },
    {
     "item": "of rights arising from /over tokens or the",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 111,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 4 of 6 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 111)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Custody of tokens",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 112,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 5 of 6 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 112)"
    },
    {
     "item": "tokens in insolvency proceedings including",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (moderate)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 112,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (moderate)"
    },
    {
     "item": "risk Others",
     "col": 6,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "Don't know / no opinion / not applicable (last column)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 112,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 6 of 6 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 112)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "",
     "page": 110,
     "text": "Don't\n\nIssuing a\n\nwith national\n\nlaw\n\nIssuing a\n\nwith national\n\nlaw\n\nTransferring\n\nownership (acquisitions,\n\ndispositions,\n\nincluding\n\ngood faith\n\nacquisition /\n\nbona fide\n\nownership\n\nPossibility to\n\ntokens in\n\nnational law\n\nproperty\n\nRights of\n\ncustody\n\nchains\n\nEnforcement\n\nand exercise underlying\n\nassets\n\nTreatment of\n\nintermediary"
    },
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your answers to question 80.1 and provide examples from national law. In particular specify if any of the answers is specifically referring to native or non-native tokens and specify if any of the answers would be different depending on if the token is recording a tokenised financial instrument or crypto-assets:",
     "page": 112,
     "text": "There is material uncertainty because technical control of a token and legal ownership are not always the same thing. This is a fundamental trust problem: the ledger can prove who controls a key while the law may assign the underlying right elsewhere. Priority should therefore be given to ownership/entitlement, third-party effect, custody, insolvency and enforceability. Yes. The most significant uncertainty is the gap between a cryptographic fact and a legal fact.\n\nControl of a private key can demonstrate the technical ability to transfer a token. It does not necessarily establish legal ownership, beneficial entitlement, authority to dispose of the asset, or the rights of third parties. This distinction becomes critical in theft, compromised keys, delegated authority, custody, collateral, inheritance and insolvency.\n\nGerman law provides a useful comparison. The Electronic Securities Act (eWpG) deliberately creates legal certainty for electronic securities within its scope. An electronic security generally has the same legal effect as a certificated security and is treated as a “thing” for purposes of §90 BGB. The Act identifies the registered holder, provides rules for transfers and good-faith acquisition, and establishes an applicable-law rule for rights in electronic securities.\n\nThat is useful precisely because it demonstrates the remaining problem. The law has deliberately mapped particular tokenised financial instruments into a defined legal architecture. The same certainty does not automatically follow for every native crypto-asset simply because cryptographic ownership or transfer can be demonstrated. I therefore distinguish native and non-native tokens.\n\nFor a non-native token representing a security, deposit, claim, real-world asset or other off-chain right, the critical question is what legal right the token represents and whether transfer of the token actually transfers that underlying right. The token and the legal claim cannot simply be assumed to be identical.\n\nFor a native crypto-asset, there may be no separate issuer or underlying off-chain asset. The central questions instead concern whether the token itself is recognised as property, when ownership legally transfers, the effect of theft or unauthorised transfer, good-faith acquisition, collateral, competing third-party claims and insolvency.\n\nIntermediated custody creates another layer. The law should distinguish clearly between ownership of an asset, a contractual claim against an intermediary and beneficial entitlement to assets held collectively. Insolvency is where ambiguity in that trust relationship becomes most dangerous.\n\nThe objective should not be to force every token into the legal model developed for traditional securities. It should be to make the legal consequences of the architecture predictable.\n\nCryptographic control, legal ownership, beneficial entitlement and authority to dispose should not be treated as automatically synonymous.\n\nThat distinction will become even more important as smart accounts, multisignature arrangements and autonomous agents increasingly exercise technically valid authority over assets without necessarily possessing beneficial ownership or unlimited legal authority."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "80.2",
   "anchor": "q-80-2",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-80-2",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.6 Legal treatment of tokens",
   "page": 114,
   "question": "What is the urgency with which each issue should be addressed by regulators?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Issuing a crypto-asset token in compliance with national law",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (low urgency)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 114,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (low urgency)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Issuing a tokenised financial instrument in compliance with national law",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (low urgency)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 114,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (low urgency)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Transferring ownership (acquisitions, dispositions, earmarking etc) over a token, including good faith acquisition / bona fide ownership",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (low urgency)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 114,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (low urgency)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Recognising ownership in a token towards third-parties",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (moderate urgency)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 114,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (moderate urgency)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Using tokens as collateral",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (high urgency)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 114,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (high urgency)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Possibility to differentiate between native and non-native tokens in national law",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (moderate urgency)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 114,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (moderate urgency)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Recognising tokens as objects of property",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "3 (moderate urgency)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 114,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "3 (moderate urgency)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Rights of token holders in intermediated custody chains",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (high urgency)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 114,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (high urgency)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Enforcement and exercise of rights arising from /over tokens or the underlying assets",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (high urgency)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 114,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (high urgency)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Custody of tokens",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 115,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 5 of 6 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 115)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Treatment of tokens in insolvency proceedings including intermediary risk",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (high urgency)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 115,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (high urgency)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Others",
     "col": 6,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "Don't know / no opinion / not applicable (last column)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 115,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 6 of 6 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 115)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your answers to question 80.2 and provide examples from national law. In particular specify if any of the answers is specifically referring to native or non-native tokens and specify if any of the answers would be different depending on if the token is recording a tokenised financial instrument or crypto-assets:",
     "page": 116,
     "text": "The highest urgency should be attached to the questions that determine what a person actually owns and what happens when something goes wrong: property status, transfer, third-party effect, custody, enforcement and insolvency.\n\nThese are more fundamental than adding further rules governing issuance.\n\nAgain, Germany provides a useful example. The eWpG creates explicit legal effects for electronic securities within its scope, including rules concerning registered ownership, transfer, good-faith acquisition and applicable law. That demonstrates that technological innovation does not require abandoning private-law certainty.\n\nBut the solution should not be to require every digital asset to enter an approved register or intermediary structure before receiving legal recognition.\n\nThat would solve legal uncertainty by creating another permission architecture.\n\nNative crypto-assets require particular attention because there may be no issuer, register operator or underlying off-chain claim around which traditional private law can organise itself. The law should be capable of recognising ownership and resolving competing claims without manufacturing an intermediary merely because existing legal concepts find an intermediary convenient.\n\nNon-native tokens present a different problem. Where a token represents a security or another off-chain asset or claim, legal certainty is required concerning the relationship between the token and the represented right. A technically valid token transfer should not leave the parties uncertain whether the underlying legal entitlement moved with it.\n\nCustody and insolvency are immediately important because they determine whether someone actually owns an asset or merely holds a claim against an intermediary when that intermediary fails.\n\nI would also treat the distinction between cryptographic control, ownership and delegated authority as an immediate issue.\n\nPossession of a valid signing key establishes technical capability. It should not automatically establish beneficial ownership or unlimited legal authority.\n\nThis distinction already matters for custodians, multisignature arrangements, compromised wallets and delegated keys. It will become considerably more important as autonomous software and AI agents transact through smart accounts on behalf of human and institutional principals.\n\nEurope has an opportunity here to provide genuine scaffolding: clear property rights, predictable transfer rules, enforceable ownership, clear treatment of custody and insolvency, and legal recognition of delegated authority. That increases freedom rather than restricting it.\n\nLegal certainty should tell people what their rights are when they choose an architecture. It should not determine which architecture they are allowed to choose."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "81",
   "anchor": "q-81",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-81",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.6 Legal treatment of tokens",
   "page": 117,
   "question": "Would you recommend increasing the legal certainty in the treatment of tokens through EU law ?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "Yes",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 117
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "81.1",
   "anchor": "q-81-1",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-81-1",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.6 Legal treatment of tokens",
   "page": 117,
   "question": "What are the 3 most important elements that should be addressed in EU law ? Please explain your answer and provide examples: Most important element number 1:",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "",
     "page": 117,
     "text": "Ownership/property status and effect against third parties\n\nEU law should clearly establish whether and when a token is an object of property, who legally owns it, and whether that ownership is enforceable against third parties.\n\nCryptographic control and legal ownership should not automatically be treated as synonymous. Possession of a private key demonstrates technical ability to transfer an asset, but it does not necessarily establish beneficial ownership or legal authority to dispose of it. This distinction matters for theft, compromised keys, multisignature arrangements, delegated authority and increasingly autonomous agents.\n\nGermany's eWpG provides a useful example for electronic securities. Qualifying electronic securities are given the same legal effect as certificated securities and are treated as objects of property under §90 BGB. EU law should provide comparable certainty for digital assets across borders without requiring every token to adopt the institutional architecture of a traditional security.\n\nFor native crypto-assets, legal recognition should not depend on the existence of an issuer, custodian or authorised register operator. For non-native tokens representing an off-chain asset or claim, the law should clearly establish the relationship between ownership of the token and ownership or entitlement to the represented asset.\n\nLegal recognition of ownership is scaffolding. It should protect the individual's rights, not become leverage for requiring an approved ledger, custodian or token architecture."
    },
    {
     "prompt": "Most important element number 2:",
     "page": 118,
     "text": "Transfer, including good-faith acquisition and unauthorised transfers\n\nEU law should establish predictable rules for when ownership of a token legally transfers, the consequences of an unauthorised transfer, competing claims, and whether and under what circumstances good-faith acquisition is possible.\n\nA blockchain can establish with considerable certainty that a transaction occurred. It cannot by itself establish that the person controlling the signing key was the beneficial owner or possessed legal authority to make that transfer.\n\nGermany's eWpG again provides a useful example. It expressly defines requirements for transferring electronic securities and provides rules for good-faith acquisition. Similar legal certainty is needed across the EU for digital assets.\n\nThe treatment should recognise the difference between native and non-native tokens. For a native crypto-asset, the principal question may be whether transfer of the token transfers the property itself. For a token representing a security, deposit or other off-chain claim, EU law must additionally establish whether transfer of the token transfers the represented legal right.\n\nThe objective should be to make the legal consequences of a voluntary transaction predictable, not to require transactions to occur through an approved intermediary simply because intermediated transactions are easier for regulators to categorise."
    },
    {
     "prompt": "Most important element number 3:",
     "page": 118,
     "text": "Custody and insolvency treatment\n\nEU law should clearly establish the rights of token holders when assets are held through an intermediary and what happens to those assets if the intermediary becomes insolvent.\n\nA holder should be able to know whether they legally own the underlying token, possess a beneficial interest in segregated assets, or merely hold a contractual claim against the custodian. The law should also make clear whether assets may be rehypothecated, how shortfalls are allocated, and how additional intermediaries in a custody chain affect those rights.\n\nGermany's eWpG demonstrates one approach by expressly addressing individual and collective registration of electronic securities and the legal position of holders within those structures. The broader EU problem is ensuring that custody does not make ownership ambiguous precisely when the intermediary fails.\n\nThis is especially important because self-custody and intermediated custody represent fundamentally different trust relationships. In self-custody, the individual retains technical control and accepts the vulnerabilities associated with that control. In intermediated custody, authority is deliberately transferred to another party and additional counterparty and insolvency risks are created.\n\nEU law should protect people when they choose that intermediary relationship. It should not use those protections to make intermediation mandatory. The goal should be clear rights in failure, not regulation that eliminates the ability to avoid intermediary risk in the first place."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "81.2",
   "anchor": "q-81-2",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-81-2",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.6 Legal treatment of tokens",
   "page": 120,
   "question": "Can legal certainty (ownership or entitlement, transfer and enforceability of rights recorded as tokens) be achieved under EU law in one of the following manners?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "Implementation of a 28th regime recognising legal effects of DLT registers holding tokens, including good-faith acquisition rules and rules on opposability/enforceability to third parties (erga omnes effects)",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (rather agree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 120,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (rather agree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Full harmonisation of private law treatment of tokens in Member States",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "2 (rather disagree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 120,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "2 (rather disagree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Partial harmonisation of private law treatment of tokens in Member States",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "4 (rather agree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 120,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "4 (rather agree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Introducing a conflict of law regime for tokens under EU law",
     "col": 5,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "5 (strongly agree)",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 120,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "5 (strongly agree)"
    },
    {
     "item": "Other model",
     "col": 6,
     "ncol": 6,
     "scale": "Don't know - No opinion - Not applicable",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 120,
     "scale_label_verified": true,
     "display": "Don't know - No opinion - Not applicable"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your answers to question 81.2 and provide examples, in particular from national law. Where you favour full or partial harmonisation or the introduction of a conflict of laws regime, please specify which legal instrument would be most appropriate for that purpose (a new Regulation or the use of existing regimes, such as MiFID or MiCA). Also consider if there are risks with establishing an ownership regime at EU level and how these risks could be mitigated:",
     "page": 121,
     "text": "I favor a functional EU layer and clear conflict-of-law rules over wholesale harmonization of Member State property law. The objective should be interoperability between legal systems: predictable consequences for ledger entries, transfers and third-party rights while preserving national law where it does not create cross- border uncertainty."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "82",
   "anchor": "q-82",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-82",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.6 Legal treatment of tokens",
   "page": 121,
   "question": "There are different “ ownership models ” that could be used to increase legal certainty over tokens. Please indicate maximum two models listed below that you think EU law could apply if it were to improve the legal certainty of tokens in the EU: Maximum 2 selection(s) Please select as many answers as you like MODEL 1: The token is the asset by law, the law recognises a ledger-based asset and the ownership rights are constituted directly by the ledger entry. MODEL 2: The token is the asset by law, where the law recognises that e.g. securities (dematerialised or physical) can be replaced by an entry into a DLT register and by this “replacing” (immobilisation) of the securities the function of the initial security is substituted by entry into a DLT register and the ownership rights are constituted by the representation on the ledger.",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "MODEL 3: Token is the asset by law. In this case the law does not actively",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 121
    },
    {
     "choice": "MODEL 4: The token is the legal carrier of rights associated with a related (often",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 122
    },
    {
     "choice": "Functional rules regulating the effects of recording an asset on chain",
     "subpart": "MODEL 3 - b) Is it preferable to establish constitutive rules of ownership",
     "page": 123
    },
    {
     "choice": "For native",
     "subpart": "MODEL 3 - c) Are the different ownership models better suited for native or",
     "page": 124
    },
    {
     "choice": "No",
     "subpart": "MODEL 3 - d) Can the same ownership model be implemented for all types",
     "page": 125
    },
    {
     "choice": "Functional rules regulating the effects of recording an asset on chain",
     "subpart": "MODEL 4 - b) Is it preferable to establish constitutive rules of ownership",
     "page": 126
    },
    {
     "choice": "For non-native tokens",
     "subpart": "MODEL 4 - c) Are the different ownership models better suited for native or",
     "page": 127
    },
    {
     "choice": "No",
     "subpart": "MODEL 4 - d) Can the same ownership model be implemented for all types",
     "page": 128
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "MODEL 3: Token is the asset by law. In this case the law does not actively regulate legal aspects such as what property is or how transfer of ownership occurs etc. but instructs on the legal consequences of entries in a DLT register (this is often called a functional approach). The law could at EU level stipulate who may exercise rights, i.e. the person recorded in the DLT register as holder of a tokenised asset, that these rights have full third-party effect and protects from competing claims. This also creates legal certainty for collateral use. The EU law would create a uniform rule of “digital entitlement” that functions across all Member States’ property law structures. MODEL 4: The token is the legal carrier of rights associated with a related (often off-chain) asset. The law defines tokens as legal objects that do not create new rights, but can –like a “container” –represent various kinds of rights, such as membership rights, ownership, intellectual property rights, usage rights or rights of lien etc. The token would represent the rights stemming from the underlying assets and the law would ensure that the transfer of a token on the ledger legally transfers ownership of the rights stemming from the underlying asset. (Inspired by Lichtenstein Law . Art 2 TVTG defines token as a piece of information on a TT System which can represent claims or rights of memberships against a person, rights to property, or other absolute or relative rights. Art 5 TVTG states that the TT Key holder has the power of disposal over the Token. It is further assumed that the person possessing the power of disposal over a Token also has the right to dispose of the Token. For every previous holder of the power of disposal, it is presumed that he was the person possessing the right of disposal at the time of this ownership). MODEL 5: Any other legal ownership structures, for example based on the approaches taken by different countries, including France, Germany, Luxembourg or adopted in other jurisdictions or internationally, that could be implemented in EU law. You selected: MODEL 3 - a) What would be the legal interoperability of any such EU level measure with national private laws of Member States, or at least laws of the Member State that you are familiar with?",
     "page": 123,
     "text": "I favor the functional approach in Model 3 for native on-chain assets and the rights-carrier approach in Model 4 where a token represents an off-chain asset or claim. The law should not pretend every token has the same ontology. What matters is that the holder can determine what right the token carries, against whom, and what legal consequence follows from transfer. Model 3 appears capable of interoperating with German private law and, in my view, offers a useful route to EU- wide legal certainty precisely because it need not replace national property law wholesale.\n\nGermany's eWpG already demonstrates a functional bridge between an electronic register and existing private law. It gives electronic securities the same legal effect as certificated securities, treats them as objects of property under §90 BGB, identifies the registered holder and provides rules governing transfer and good-faith acquisition.\n\nAn EU rule of digital entitlement could perform a similar function across Member States: establish defined legal consequences of an on-chain record, including who may exercise rights, third-party effect and protection against competing claims, while leaving broader national property-law systems intact where possible.\n\nThe important limitation is that the EU rule should not require an authorised intermediary or centrally approved register merely to obtain legal recognition. A genuinely decentralised ledger must be capable of producing legally recognised evidence and legal effects without the law manufacturing a gatekeeper where the architecture itself has none.\n\nEU law should create interoperability between technical fact and legal consequence, not use legal recognition as leverage to prescribe the technical architecture."
    },
    {
     "prompt": "MODEL 3 - b) Is it preferable to establish constitutive rules of ownership based on the asset being recorded on chain or functional rules regulating the effects of recording an asset on chain? Constitutive rules of ownership based on the asset being recorded on chain Functional rules regulating the effects of recording an asset on chain Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to MODEL 3 b):",
     "page": 123,
     "text": "I prefer functional rules regulating the legal effects of recording an asset on-chain.\n\nA constitutive rule stating that the blockchain record itself conclusively creates ownership risks collapsing several different concepts into one: cryptographic control, registration, beneficial ownership and legal authority.\n\nThey are not always the same.\n\nA stolen private key can produce a technically valid transaction. A custodian can control keys without beneficially owning the assets. A multisig participant can possess signing authority without ownership. An autonomous agent may be authorised to execute transactions within a limited mandate without owning the assets it controls.\n\nThe law should therefore specify what legal consequences follow from an on-chain record while preserving mechanisms for dealing with theft, fraud, mistake, delegated authority, competing claims and good-faith acquisition.\n\nThe ledger can provide exceptionally strong evidence of what occurred technically. The law should determine the legal consequences of that fact rather than pretending the technical fact answers every legal question.\n\nThis is also more technologically neutral. It recognises the evidentiary and transactional properties of DLT without making a particular technical record the source of every underlying legal right."
    },
    {
     "prompt": "MODEL 3 - c) Are the different ownership models better suited for native or non-native tokens? For native For non-native tokens Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to MODEL 3 c):",
     "page": 124,
     "text": "Model 3 is particularly well suited to native tokens.\n\nFor a genuinely native crypto-asset there may be no separate off-chain asset, issuer or legal claim represented by the token. The token is the asset.\n\nIn that situation, creating legal consequences around the on-chain record is considerably more natural than attempting to locate an underlying off-chain right that does not exist.\n\nBitcoin and Ether are obvious examples conceptually: the asset exists natively within the relevant network rather than functioning as a digital receipt for an external asset.\n\nThe law should therefore be capable of recognising digitally native property on its own terms.\n\nThat does not mean that the ledger should conclusively determine every legal question. Theft, compromised keys, inheritance, insolvency, delegated authority and competing claims can still require legal rules. But those rules should operate around the native asset rather than pretending it represents something outside the network."
    },
    {
     "prompt": "MODEL 3 - d) Can the same ownership model be implemented for all types of tokens (crypto-assets and DLT financial instruments)? Yes No Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable MODEL 3 - d) What would need to be different depending on the type of the token?",
     "page": 125,
     "text": "The same ownership model should not be imposed identically on all tokens because native and non-native tokens represent fundamentally different legal relationships.\n\nFor a native crypto-asset, the token can itself be the object of property. There may be no external issuer, security, deposit, physical asset or contractual claim behind it.\n\nFor a tokenised financial instrument, the token generally represents or carries rights that already exist within a wider legal relationship: rights against an issuer, shareholder rights, repayment rights, claims to assets or other legally defined entitlements.\n\nEU law should therefore establish common principles of digital entitlement, transfer, third-party effect, custody and insolvency while allowing the legal consequences to reflect what the token actually is.\n\nTechnological similarity should not erase legal difference."
    },
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your answers for MODEL 3 and provide examples:",
     "page": 125,
     "text": "Model 3 is strongest for native digital assets because it allows law to recognise legal consequences of a digital record without inventing an underlying off-chain asset.\n\nGermany's eWpG demonstrates that national private law can successfully connect electronic registration to property-law consequences. It expressly recognises qualifying electronic securities as property and establishes rules for ownership transfer and good-faith acquisition.\n\nI would extend the principle, but not necessarily the institutional architecture.\n\nA public permissionless ledger should not require an authorised central register operator merely to receive legal recognition. The useful principle is that a reliable digital record can have predictable legal effects.\n\nThe law should then address the exceptional cases the ledger cannot resolve by itself: theft, fraud, compromised authority, good-faith acquisition, inheritance, insolvency and competing claims.\n\nThe objective should be legal recognition of digital property, not regulatory ownership of its infrastructure."
    },
    {
     "prompt": "You selected: MODEL 4 - a) What would be the legal interoperability of any such EU level measure with national private laws of Member States, or at least laws of the Member State that you are familiar with?",
     "page": 126,
     "text": "Model 4 should be capable of interoperating with German private law, but it requires greater care because the token and the underlying right are legally distinct things unless legislation expressly connects them.\n\nThis model is particularly useful where a token represents a security, ownership interest, intellectual-property right, lien, claim against an issuer or another off-chain entitlement.\n\nEU law could establish that a valid transfer of the token transfers the associated legal right, giving the token a legally recognised carrier function across Member States.\n\nGermany's eWpG demonstrates a related approach for electronic securities: §25 provides that transfer of ownership of the electronic security also transfers the right arising from that security.\n\nEU harmonisation could provide similar certainty across borders.\n\nHowever, the underlying right still matters. A token representing shares, a debt claim, real estate, intellectual property or a bank deposit cannot automatically override every substantive rule governing those different assets.\n\nThe objective should therefore be legal interoperability between the token and the underlying right, not the fiction that tokenisation makes every underlying asset legally identical."
    },
    {
     "prompt": "MODEL 4 - b) Is it preferable to establish constitutive rules of ownership based on the asset being recorded on chain or functional rules regulating the effects of recording an asset on chain? Constitutive rules of ownership based on the asset being recorded on chain Functional rules regulating the effects of recording an asset on chain Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to MODEL 4 b):",
     "page": 127,
     "text": "I prefer functional rules here even more strongly than under Model 3.\n\nFor a non-native token, recording something on-chain cannot by itself determine every aspect of ownership because an underlying legal right exists outside the ledger.\n\nA token representing a share, bond, property interest, intellectual-property right or other claim should have clearly defined legal consequences when transferred. Ideally, the law should make the connection sufficiently strong that transferring the token reliably transfers the represented right.\n\nBut the ledger cannot determine whether the underlying right existed validly in the first place, whether the issuer possessed authority to tokenise it, or whether mandatory rules governing that asset have been satisfied.\n\nFunctional rules can create a strong legal bridge between token and underlying right without pretending that the digital representation creates reality simply by being written to a ledger."
    },
    {
     "prompt": "MODEL 4 - c) Are the different ownership models better suited for native or non-native tokens? For native For non-native tokens Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable Please explain your answer to MODEL 4 c):",
     "page": 127,
     "text": "Model 4 is naturally suited to non-native tokens because its purpose is to make the token the legal carrier of a right or asset that exists outside the token itself.\n\nExamples include tokenised bonds, shares, deposits, intellectual-property rights, claims against an issuer, liens or interests in physical assets.\n\nThe important legal function is to make the relationship between token and represented right unambiguous.\n\nIf I acquire the token, I should know whether I acquired the underlying right.\n\nIf I transfer the token, I should know whether that right transferred.\n\nIf the issuer becomes insolvent, I should know whether I own an asset, possess a secured claim or merely stand among unsecured creditors. That is fundamentally different from a native crypto-asset, where there may be no separate underlying right for the token to carry."
    },
    {
     "prompt": "MODEL 4 - d) Can the same ownership model be implemented for all types of tokens (crypto-assets and DLT financial instruments)? Yes No Don’t know / no opinion / not applicable MODEL 4 - d) What would need to be different depending on the type of the token?",
     "page": 128,
     "text": "The same model should not be imposed on every token.\n\nFor a native crypto-asset, the token itself can be the property. There is no need to invent an underlying right for it to carry.\n\nFor a non-native token, the legal architecture must define the relationship between the token and the underlying asset or claim.\n\nFor tokenised financial instruments specifically, existing substantive rights and obligations under securities, corporate and financial law continue to matter. Tokenisation should provide a new means of recording, holding and transferring those rights rather than silently changing their substantive content.\n\nThe common EU layer should therefore concentrate on legal certainty around digital entitlement, transfer, third- party effect, custody and insolvency, while the specific legal consequences reflect the nature of the underlying asset.\n\nThe law should follow the actual relationship rather than forcing different relationships into one model merely because they use the same technology."
    },
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your answers for MODEL 4 and provide examples:",
     "page": 128,
     "text": "Model 4 provides a useful legal bridge between DLT and existing property and financial law for non-native assets.\n\nA tokenized bond should reliably carry the rights of the bond. A tokenized share should reliably carry the relevant shareholder rights. A token representing another asset or claim should tell the holder precisely what legal entitlement travels with the token.\n\nGermany's eWpG provides a useful example. For qualifying electronic securities, German law connects ownership of the electronic security with the right arising from that security and establishes rules governing transfer and good-faith acquisition.\n\nThe EU could create comparable cross-border certainty without requiring every token to pass through one prescribed institutional architecture.\n\nThis distinction between Model 3 and Model 4 is important.\n\nFor a native asset, the token may be the thing.\n\nFor a non-native asset, the token may carry rights to something else.\n\nThose are different trust relationships and should not be collapsed simply because both are represented using DLT.\n\nThe strongest EU framework would recognize that distinction while providing interoperable rules for ownership, transfer, third-party effect, custody and insolvency.\n\nAgain, the purpose should be scaffolding: make rights clear and enforceable while preserving architectural choice."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "83",
   "anchor": "q-83",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-83",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.6 Legal treatment of tokens",
   "page": 129,
   "question": "Comparing national laws of Member States, what are the main differences in how national laws governs the issuance, holdings and transfers of tokens? Please explain your answer and provide examples:",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "",
     "page": 129,
     "text": "The central problem is not that Member States must have identical property law, but that token ownership, transfer, custody and third-party effect can receive different legal treatment while the token itself moves seamlessly across borders. I would therefore prioritize EU rules on cross-border effect and legal interoperability rather than attempting an exhaustive replacement of national private law."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "84",
   "anchor": "q-84",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-84",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.7 Questions on conflicts of law",
   "page": 129,
   "question": "Should EU law introduce a conflict of law rule for tokens?",
   "selections": [
    {
     "choice": "Yes",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 129
    }
   ],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "84.1",
   "anchor": "q-84-1",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-84-1",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.7 Questions on conflicts of law",
   "page": 130,
   "question": "please explain why the current conflict of law rules applicable in EU are not enough or sufficiently clear in its application to tokens?",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "",
     "page": 130,
     "text": "Yes. EU conflict-of-law rules should be introduced for the proprietary aspects of tokens because many traditional connecting factors assume a physical location, identifiable intermediary, central register or system operator.\n\nThose assumptions become difficult to apply to genuinely distributed systems.\n\nA native crypto-asset on a public permissionless blockchain may have no issuer, no central administrator, no single register operator and no meaningful geographic location of the ledger. The same ledger may be replicated and validated across many jurisdictions simultaneously.\n\nTrying to determine the applicable property law from the physical location of nodes, validators, developers or other technical infrastructure would therefore produce uncertainty rather than resolve it.\n\nThe problem is different for tokenised financial instruments and other non-native tokens. Where there is an identifiable issuer, regulated register or underlying legal asset, existing connecting factors may remain meaningful. Germany's eWpG demonstrates this approach for electronic securities: §32 generally connects rights and dispositions concerning an electronic security to the law of the state supervising the relevant register operator, with fallback rules where that connection is unavailable.\n\nThat works because the architecture deliberately contains a legally identifiable register operator.\n\nEU law should not extrapolate from that model and require every token architecture to create such an operator merely to make conflict-of-law analysis possible.\n\nA conflict-of-law rule for tokens should therefore accommodate both architectures: systems with identifiable legal anchors and genuinely decentralised systems without them.\n\nThe purpose of the rule should be to provide predictable legal consequences for architectural choices, not to force architectural choices in order to obtain predictable legal consequences."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "84.2",
   "anchor": "q-84-2",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-84-2",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.7 Questions on conflicts of law",
   "page": 130,
   "question": "If the EU would introduce conflict of law rules for proprietary aspects of tokens, what would be the preferred connecting factors? Rank the below listed connection factors from 1 to 5 (1 being the most relevant connecting factor and 5 the least relevant connection factor). Connecting factors without a ranking will be considered not relevant: at most 5 answered row(s)",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [
    {
     "item": "The law of the state specified in the token or in the principles (if any) expressly specified in the token",
     "col": 1,
     "ncol": 5,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 131,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 1 of 5 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 131)"
    },
    {
     "item": "The law of the state specified in the rules or in the principles of the system on which the token is recorded",
     "col": 2,
     "ncol": 5,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 131,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 2 of 5 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 131)"
    },
    {
     "item": "In relation to tokens for which there is an issuer, the law of the state under whose supervision the issuer operates",
     "col": 4,
     "ncol": 5,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 131,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 4 of 5 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 131)"
    },
    {
     "item": "The law of the state of the relevant operating authority/administrator (PROPA), meaning a state authority or a body (e.g., a foundation) that takes over the administration of the system onto which the token is",
     "col": 3,
     "ncol": 5,
     "scale": "",
     "subpart": "",
     "page": 131,
     "scale_label_verified": false,
     "display": "Column 3 of 5 (scale label not machine-verified, see form page 131)"
    }
   ],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "Please explain your answers to question 84, 84.1 and 84.2 and provide examples. In answering this question, please consider if the suggested scope of the conflict of law rule in your view is the right one, and whether there are aspects missing:",
     "page": 132,
     "text": "My preferred hierarchy begins with an expressly specified governing law where that choice is meaningful, transparent and accessible to participants.\n\n1. Law expressly specified in the token or its governing principles.\n\n2. Law specified in the rules or governing principles of the system on which the token is recorded.\n\nThese provide predictability without requiring the law to manufacture a geographic location for a distributed ledger.\n\nFor systems that intentionally use a regulated register, the law of the state supervising that register is an appropriate additional connecting factor. Germany's eWpG provides an existing example of this approach.\n\nFor non-native tokens with an identifiable issuer, the issuer's establishment and supervisory jurisdiction can provide further fallback connecting factors.\n\nI would not use the location of technology providers, validators, developers or other infrastructure providers as a primary proprietary connecting factor. Providing technology does not necessarily confer ownership, custody or authority over the asset.\n\nI would be particularly cautious about PREMA, based on the residence of a system-relevant master-key holder. A genuinely permissionless blockchain may have no such key. Creating legal advantages around the existence of one could perversely encourage systems to introduce precisely the centralized coercive authority that decentralized architectures were designed to remove.\n\nThe same concern applies to PROPA. It may be appropriate where a system genuinely has an operating authority or administrator. It should not become a reason to require every system to have one.\n\nConflict-of-law rules should recognize where authority actually exists rather than manufacture authority because existing law finds a central administrator easier to locate."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "85",
   "anchor": "q-85",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-85",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.7 Questions on conflicts of law",
   "page": 132,
   "question": "If there are any other issues relating to legal certainty which are not mentioned above, please describe them here:",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "",
     "page": 132,
     "text": "Three emerging legal-certainty issues deserve attention. First, autonomous agents. A valid signature can prove that a key authorized a transaction without proving that the human principal intended that particular action. Authentication, delegated authority and fidelity to the principal's mandate are different questions. Second, privacy and physical security. Persistent linkage of identity, wallet activity, IP metadata and location can create risks that extend beyond data protection, including coercion and physical targeting. Regulation should not create these linkages unless they are necessary for a specific vulnerability. Third, regulatory concentration itself. Where access to assets, protocols or settlement becomes dependent on a small number of licensed gateways or certifiers, the law has created a new systemic trust dependency. That dependency should be assessed with the same seriousness as technical concentration."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  },
  {
   "id": "86",
   "anchor": "q-86",
   "url": "https://donnylewis.com/mica-review-2026/#q-86",
   "part_no": "4",
   "section": "4.8 Final open question",
   "page": 133,
   "question": "Interested parties that wish to bring other relevant issues, not raised in this consultation, to the Commission’s attention, should feel free to communicate them here:",
   "selections": [],
   "ratings": [],
   "responses": [
    {
     "prompt": "",
     "page": 133,
     "text": "The greatest issue this review needs to address is not any single MiCA provision. It is the architecture created when they are assembled.\n\nMiCA should be considered alongside Europe's wider direction in digital identity, tokenized finance and settlement, including Pontes and Appia. Licensing, certification, identity, stablecoin, protocol-access, custody and settlement rules can each be justified individually. Together they can create something very different.\n\nA system does not need to prohibit alternatives to eliminate meaningful choice. It can make the cost of exercising them progressively prohibitive.\n\nIf participation increasingly requires an approved intermediary, identity, asset, protocol or settlement route, individuals may retain theoretical freedom while losing practical freedom.\n\nThe walk-away test has failed.\n\nThis is the Double-Edged Sword problem. Technologies that make relationships more verifiable can also make control extraordinarily efficient.\n\nCryptographic verification is not itself trust.\n\nTrust is willingly accepted vulnerability in the presence of risk. Where vulnerability is compulsory and meaningful exit has disappeared, the relationship is not trust. It is control.\n\nI am therefore particularly concerned by proposals involving certification of DeFi protocols and non-custodial wallets, embedded compliance mechanisms and restrictions on CASPs connecting customers to uncertified protocols.\n\nCertification can produce useful evidence. It should not automatically become permission.\n\nNon-custodial software does not possess the authority of a custodian. A genuinely decentralized protocol does not possess the authority of an intermediary. If nobody can seize assets, reverse transactions, unilaterally change the protocol, custody funds or decide participation, regulation should not require someone to acquire those powers merely to create an identifiable party capable of regulatory control.\n\nThat changes the trust architecture itself.\n\nThe same applies to money and settlement. Central-bank money for tokenized settlement and interoperability can provide value. But providing an option is different from designing the regulatory environment until it becomes the only economically viable destination.\n\nEurope should not confuse strategic autonomy with architectural enclosure. Nor should institutional permission be confused with safety. European supervisors continue to document serious deficiencies and control failures within regulated financial institutions. Regulation can reduce particular risks. It does not eliminate vulnerability.\n\nRisk moves.\n\nIf the state restricts an individual's ability to hold an asset, use open-source software, interact with a permissionless protocol or choose another settlement architecture, it should identify the specific vulnerability, justify the intervention, make its authority inspectable and preserve meaningful exit wherever possible.\n\nThat is the distinction between scaffolding and the cage.\n\nScaffolding establishes property rights, exposes material risks and hidden authority, protects against fraud and intermediary failure, makes legal relationships predictable, and allows identity to prove what needs proving without requiring every verifier to retain another copy of the person.\n\nThen it leaves people room to choose.\n\nThe cage begins when protection becomes permission: disclosure becomes approval, certification becomes access, identity becomes persistent identification, intermediaries become mandatory, and legal recognition becomes conditional upon approved architecture.\n\nEurope needs more legal certainty, not less. But it needs discipline about what legal certainty is for.\n\nRegulate vulnerability where it exists: reserve risk at the reserve layer, issuer risk at the issuer layer, custody risk at the custody layer, fraud at the point of fraud, systemic exposure where it actually exists.\n\nDo not manufacture intermediaries because they are easier to regulate. Do not manufacture control because it is easier to supervise. Do not make permissionless systems permissioned in practice while calling them permissionless in theory.\n\nSpecific vulnerability should justify specific authority. That authority should be bounded, inspectable and revocable. People should retain a meaningful ability to refuse it and choose another architecture.\n\nThat is Trust Architecture.\n\nMiCA should be judged not only by whether each rule appears reasonable in isolation, but by where they lead when combined.\n\nIf every road ultimately leads through institutionally approved identity, intermediaries, assets, protocols and settlement infrastructure, Europe will not have built trustworthy digital finance.\n\nIt will have built a sophisticated system of capture and called it trust."
    }
   ],
   "note": null
  }
 ],
 "extraction_notes": [
  "Text answers were extracted from the EUSurvey PDF answer boxes and are verbatim.",
  "Radio and checkbox selections were read from the form's checked-state images.",
  "Grid rating labels were matched to column headers by position; entries marked scale_label_verified=false should be read from the original form page cited.",
  "Hyphens were normalised from U+2011 to U+002D. No other changes were made to answer text."
 ]
}