The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has placed crypto-asset oversight at the center of its 2027 Work Programme, shifting from regulatory groundwork to active compliance enforcement. The programme follows the full implementation of the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework and defines operational priorities for a stronger and more integrated EU capital market.
ESMA intends to cooperate closely with National Competent Authorities (NCAs) and intensify supervision of crypto-asset service providers (CASPs). In practice, the regulator plans to standardize oversight through new rules and periodic reporting obligations for CASPs, ensuring consistent application of MiCA across EU member states.
As part of its supervisory toolkit, ESMA’s centralized market surveillance system, MIDAS, is expected to be fully operational in its first phase next year. MIDAS will be used to detect and prevent possible market abuse involving digital assets. ESMA Chair Verena Ross said the institution will seek to simplify and modernize market supervision through greater use of data and technology.
Beyond direct crypto oversight, tokenization remains a priority under the distributed ledger technology pilot regime. ESMA said: “Tokenization will remain a priority for ESMA, further expanding the work on the opportunities it can bring to EU capital markets.”
The regulator also turned its attention to prediction markets, warning that many event contract platforms fall under binary options regulation and must obtain a license under the MiFID II Directive. This signals closer scrutiny of platforms that operate in legal gray areas.
Overall, ESMA is moving into an enforcement phase, targeting market abuse and supervisory convergence. Crypto users and service providers in the EU should expect increasingly harmonized compliance expectations beginning in 2027.
