Legal Classification of Liquid Staking Tokens (LSTs) in the EU

This interim report examines the legal classification of liquid staking tokens (LSTs) under EU law, analysing their treatment across MiCA, MiFID II, and AIFMD. It introduces a feature-based taxonomy grounded in mechanism design and decentralisation, and applies it to LSTs to determine when they fall within the MiCA “other crypto-assets” (OTH) category or may trigger financial instrument or fund classification. This version is published for industry feedback as part of a working group bringing together market participants to refine the analysis and align interpretations.