The Hyperliquid Policy Center and stablecoin issuer Circle submitted formal feedback to the European Commission challenging key provisions of the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, which entered its phased rollout in June 2024.
Circle, the issuer of USDC, is targeting MiCA's bank deposit concentration requirement, which mandates that stablecoin issuers hold at least 60 percent of reserves in European bank deposits. The firm argues this rule increases systemic risk by creating exposure to potential bank failures and limits reserve management flexibility. Circle is pushing for regulators to permit highly liquid, low-risk instruments such as short-term government bonds and to remove MiCA's 35 percent sovereign exposure cap.
The Hyperliquid Policy Center is pressing a separate claim on derivatives classification. It urges EU regulators to treat perpetual futures under the existing Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) rather than MiCA. Hyperliquid contends that applying MiCA to perpetuals would create regulatory misalignment and disadvantage European traders competing in global decentralized finance markets. The policy center argues MiFID II, enacted in 2014, is the more appropriate framework and that perps should be kept separate from the EU's Contracts for Difference (CFD) rules.
Both submissions represent a push from major players in the crypto and DeFi sectors to shape a regulation still in its early enforcement phase. The Commission is currently reviewing MiCA's practical impact as it enters fuller implementation.
