ESMA assesses market developments in DeFi and explores the smart contracts system

October 11, 2023--The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU's financial markets and securities regulator, today publishes two articles on decentralised finance (DeFi), one on developments and risks in the EU market and another on a methodology for the categorisation of smart contracts. These articles highlight important risks to consumers, new forms of market abuse, and possible vulnerabilities to financial stability.

DeFi: developments and risks in the EU market

The article on DeFi developments and risks in the EU shows that DeFi raises serious risks to investor protection, because of the highly speculative nature of many DeFi arrangements and important operational and security vulnerabilities. Risks to financial stability are not meaningful at this point owing to DeFi’s small size but require monitoring. In addition, DeFi's unique features have led to new market manipulation issues that need to be addressed.

ESMA finalises technical standards on derivatives transparency and the OTC derivatives tape

December 15, 2025-The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU's financial markets regulator and supervisor, published today the Final Report covering mandates under the MiFIR Review on derivatives trade transparency, package orders and the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives consolidated tape input and output data.

France Eases Retail Crypto Rules as Europe Unlocks Access for Millions

December 9, 2025-AMF doctrine shift follows UK and Nordic moves;
CoinShares leads the European market with a 32% AUM share
CoinShares International Limited ("CoinShares" or "the Group") (Nasdaq Stockholm: CS; USOTCQX: CNSRF) - a leading global asset manager specialising in digital assets, which has announced a merger with Vine Hill Capital Investment Corp (Nasdaq: VCIC), welcomes France's AMF decision to open retail access to regulated crypto ETNs.

Archax Executes First After-Hours Transaction of its Tokenized Canary HBR ETF on Hedera Mainnet

December 5, 2025-Archax, the UK/EU-regulated digital asset platform, today announced the tokenization and first onchain transaction of the Canary HBR ETF on the Hedera Network. The completed out-of-hours transaction is a landmark achievement in blockchain-based finance: an ETF linked to Hedera's native token, tokenized and transacting on the Hedera Network itself, outside of traditional market hours.