Europe takes direct charge of USDC, naming Circle's $73 billion stablecoin the first 'significant' e-money token under MiCA, with reserve oversight moving to the EBA on November 12

The European Union's banking regulator will supervise the second-largest dollar stablecoin directly. The European Banking Authority said on Wednesday that it had assessed USDC against the criteria in the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation and classified it as a significant e-money token, the first of the 45 e-money tokens notified under MiCA to get that label. Cointelegraph put USDC's market value at about $73 billion, behind Tether's roughly $184 billion.

The label changes who watches the coin. From November 12, the EBA takes over from France's Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution the supervision of Circle Europe's own funds, its reserve of assets, its liquidity requirements and its recovery and redemption plans. The ACPR keeps governance, qualifying holdings, fit-and-proper checks on managers, outsourcing and conflicts of interest, and the two authorities say they will work together on the handover. The EBA reviews significance every year.

The decision rests on Articles 43 and 56 of MiCA; crypto.news noted that a token must meet at least three of the Article 43 criteria to be significant, and the EBA did not say which ones USDC met. Circle has issued USDC in the EU under an ACPR electronic money licence since July 2024, according to crypto.news. Alongside the classification, the EBA signed a memorandum of understanding with the New York State Department of Financial Services to exchange supervisory information on cross-border stablecoin activity.