Malta's MFSA Opens Consultation on DeFi Regulation Under MiCA Framework

According to the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA), on June 12, 2026, the regulator opened a public consultation on whether decentralized finance protocols retaining centralized features should fall within the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA). Responses are due by July 10, 2026.

MiCA's Recital 22 currently exempts crypto-asset services provided in a fully decentralized manner without intermediaries. However, the MFSA's discussion paper notes that most DeFi protocols retain administrator keys, concentrated governance, and control over user interfaces—factors that could bring them within the regulatory perimeter. The consultation seeks input on whether decentralization should be treated as a spectrum rather than a binary state, and proposes indicators of incomplete decentralization including identifiable intermediaries, governance control, and closed-source code.