ESMA Says EU Retail Ban Covers Many Prediction Markets, With MiCA Awaiting the Tokenized Ones
The post ESMA Says EU Retail Ban Covers Many Prediction Markets, With MiCA Awaiting the Tokenized Ones appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com. Key Takeaways ESMA said event contracts that qualify as financial instruments are already barred from EU retail sale under binary-options rules. The prohibition rests on national measures in force since 2018, so no new legislation is required to apply it. Two regulatory tracks, both already in force In a public statement issued on July 3, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) set out how existing EU law applies to event contracts, the yes-or-no instruments underpinning prediction markets. Its central conclusion is that many of these contracts are not a novel product category requiring new rules, but already fall within measures on the books – a point that goes further than framing the issue as future regulatory risk. ESMA’s reasoning is that event contracts whose underlying question relates to an asset listed in Section C(4) to (10)