Future of Banking & Digital Assets Roundtable, Brussels
On 17 April, the MiCA Crypto Alliance convened the Future of Banking & Digital Assets Roundtable at TheMerode in Brussels, organised in cooperation with BlackVogel and NORM. The closed-door session brought together more than 35 senior banking professionals, regulators, and infrastructure providers to examine how European institutions are navigating MiCA, DORA, and CSRD implementation in practice. The Alliance's report on the legal classification of Liquid Staking Tokens (LSTs) in the EU also informed the discussion.
During the session, the Alliance launched its new report on European bank readiness, which gave the room something concrete to react to. The headline figure – 92% of surveyed European banks already live with digital asset products – confirmed that the market has moved. What the Brussels discussion made clear is that the gap between perceived readiness and operational capability remains significant.
The Gap Between Readiness and Reality
A recurring theme across the day was the distance between how prepared institutions consider themselves to be and what compliance infrastructure actually looks like on the ground. Participants identified four areas where that gap is most pronounced:
- AML tooling. Methodological alignment on sanctions screening remains elusive even among institutions that have been active in the space the longest.
- DORA vendor requirements. The regulation is emerging as a constraint on digital asset adoption, with third-party risk obligations shaping institutional decisions in ways not yet reflected in public policy debate.
- Travel Rule compliance. Implementation timelines and technical interoperability continue to present practical challenges for cross-border transactions.
- Stablecoin liquidity dynamics. A liquidity paradox specific to institutional stablecoin participation surfaced as a theme with structural implications that have not yet reached public policy debate.
A Framework Taking Shape
The discussion also produced a constructive output. The concept of a "Minimum Compliant Product" took shape as a practical implementation framework: a way for institutions to scope initial digital asset offerings around what is demonstrably achievable within the current regulatory architecture, before expanding as the framework matures. Where DORA vendor risk obligations constrain infrastructure choices, they effectively constrain product scope – and several participants noted that DORA and MiCA authorisation timelines are not always aligned.
Research Into Real Conversation
The roundtable illustrated the function the Alliance is built to serve: turning rigorous research into structured dialogue with the people who have to make regulation work in practice, not just on paper. The findings will inform the Alliance's ongoing work on bank readiness, AML methodology, and MiCA implementation frameworks.
