Crypto-Asset White Paper under MiCAR

• The issuers of crypto- assets and persons seeking an admission to trading crypto assets must prepare a crypto-asset white paper for the public offering within the union, have it notified accordingly to the competent supervisory authority and publish it. There is no need of the ex ante approval of a crypto-asset white paper from the competent authority.

• White paper must include the following information (Art. 5 and Annex I, II and III MiCAR):

• • Information about the provider/person seeking trading-admission/issuer (if different from them) and about the operator; if different person prepares white paper if crypto asset whitepaper is prepared by other person, his identity/reason why this person prepared the crypto asset whitepaper must be mentioned; (information includes e.g. legal form, registered address, date of registration, etc.);The description of the crypto asset project (short summary, the information about all natural persons or legal entities (e.g. who are project consultants, development team, service providers, etc.);
  • The information about the offer/crypto-assets admission to trading (indication on whether it concerns public offering/trading-admission, etc.);
  • The information about rights and obligations attached to the crypto-assets (their description; procedure/conditions for their exercise/modification, etc.);
  • The description of crypto-assets (their types, characteristics, functionality);
  • The information about the characteristics of underlying technology (Information about DLT/Protocols/Technical standards/Consensus Mechanisms/Incentives, etc.);
  • Information about the risks (offer/issuer/admission risks, project implementation risks, technology risks, etc.);
  • The description of the environmental/climate related impact of the used consensus mechanism;
• The Information in the white paper must be fair, clear and not misleading (Art. 5 (2) MiCAR);
• The white paper mustnot contain material omissions and must be in a concise/comprehensible form (Art. 5 (2) MiCAR);
• Statement requirement:

• • The first page of the white paper must contain the following statement:

“This crypto-asset white paper has not been approved by any competent authority in any Member State of the European Union. The offeror (or name of “operator/platform” or “issuer”) of the crypto-assets is solely responsible for the content of this crypto-asset white paper” (Art. 5 (3) MiCAR)

Some additional requirements

• The crypto-asset white papers of asset-referenced tokens must include information on the stabilization mechanism/investment policy of the reserve assets/the custody arrangements for the reserve assets and the rights granted to the holders (Recital 30 and Annex II MiCAR);
• The issuers of electronic money tokens shall provide clear statement, in case it also issued other crypto assets/has other relative activities to them; they also shall provide information on their financial condition over the past three years, etc. (Annex III MiCAR).

• The White paper shall include a clear/unambiguous statement that crypto-assets can lose their value; that their transferability/liquidity cannot always be guaranteed etc. (Art. 5 (5) MiCAR);
• The White paper shall include statement of management body of the offeror/person seeking admission/operator that confirms that white paper is compliant with MiCAR requirements (Art. 5 (6) MiCAR).

• The White paper shall provide summary of the key information – using brief/non-technical language (Art. 5 (7) MiCAR).

• The White paper shall contain a date of notification (Art. 5 (8) MiCAR).

• The White paper shall contain a table of content (Art. 5 (8a) MiCAR).

• The White paper language shall be an official language of the home (or where applicable host) Member State or a language customary in the circles of international finance (Art. 5 (9) MiCAR).

• Required format is – a machine readable format;
• ESMA/EBA shall develop specific technical standards for the white paper format.

• The Whitepaper shall be published on the website of the issuer (Art. 8 (1) MiCAR).