The European Banking Authority (EBA) will begin directly supervising @circle's $USDC stablecoin in the European Union on Thursday, November 12. The move makes $USDC the first token to come under the EU-level oversight that the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) reserves for the largest stablecoins.
What Changes for $USDC Supervision
According to the EBA's official statement, as reported by The Block, the authority will take direct responsibility for $USDC's own funds, reserve assets, liquidity requirements, and recovery and redemption plans. These areas are currently overseen by France's Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution (ACPR).
The ACPR is not leaving the picture. The same report says the French regulator will still handle governance, qualifying holdings, fit and proper assessments, and conflicts of interest. This split follows MiCA Article 117, under which, according to the EBA, issuers of significant e-money tokens are subject to the dual supervision of the EBA and the relevant national competent authority.
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Why $USDC Was Classified as Significant
The switch follows the EBA's decision on October 14 to classify $USDC as a significant e-money token. The EBA said there are currently 45 e-money tokens in the EU that have been notified under MiCA, and $USDC is the first to be classified as significant.
The classification applies to $USDC issued in the EU by Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS. In the United States, the token is issued by Circle Internet Financial, LLC. To support oversight of cross-border stablecoin activity, the EBA has also signed a memorandum of understanding with the New York State Department of Financial Services, according to the regulator.
The label does not signal a problem with the token. Reporting by crypto.news notes that significant status does not mean the regulator found $USDC unsafe. Coin Edition adds that MiCA already requires e-money token issuers to redeem tokens at par on request, and that the extra supervision does not turn $USDC into a bank deposit.
Forexcrunch reports that the significance framework is being applied to an e-money token for the first time, and that the annual reassessment keeps the status of $USDC and the other 44 notified tokens under review. That would make the designation a yearly checkpoint rather than a permanent one.
For Circle, the practical effect is a second regulator looking at the financial safeguards behind $USDC. For the wider market, the 44 other notified tokens remain under assessment against the same criteria.
