ESMA Calls for Advertising Rules on Crypto Influencers: Six Changes Now Sitting With the EU Commission

The European securities watchdog ESMA submitted its response to the review of the crypto regulation MiCA to the EU Commission on September 30, 2026. In it the authority calls for, among other things, stricter advertising rules where crypto assets are promoted by influencers, disclosure duties for staking, lending and borrowing, and the power to shut down fraudulent websites and to freeze crypto assets. None of it applies today. These are recommendations from an authority to the legislator, submitted on the final day of a consultation. This piece sets out what ESMA specifically demands, which of the points would affect your crypto account in Europe, and how long the road is from this paper to binding law. The submission of September 30: ESMA answers the EU Commission The EU Commission opened a targeted consultation on the review of MiCA over the summer, asking where the regulation should be improved. The deadline ran out on September 30, 2026, at 23:59 Central European Summer Time. What the Commission had asked we wrote up in the article on the MiCA review and the proposed changes; the deadline itself was the subject of our piece on the consultation and its submission date. On the l...