Glossary / Regulation & tax
Market abuse rules
Also known as MiCA market abuse regime.
- What is Market abuse rules?
- Market abuse rules ban insider dealing, unlawful disclosure of inside information and market manipulation in crypto-assets, and oblige trading venues to detect and report suspicious orders.
The prohibitions sit in Title VI of Regulation (EU) 2023/1114, Articles 86 to 92, and they bind any person, not only licensed firms. Member States must let their regulators fine a company at least EUR 15 million, or 15% of annual turnover, for breaching Articles 89 to 92. For someone buying bitcoin, that is the pressure keeping a regulated venue watching its own order book.
How it works
Market abuse rules under MiCA start with a perimeter rather than a list of banned tricks. Article 86 switches Title VI on for any crypto-asset admitted to trading, or for which a request for admission to trading has been made, then extends that scope past the venue and past the border: to any transaction, order or behaviour concerning that asset whether or not it happens on a trading platform, and to actions and omissions in the Union and in third countries alike. A coin nobody has ever asked an EU venue to list falls outside the perimeter; a listed coin traded off-venue from abroad does not.
Inside that perimeter, the definition comes before the prohibitions. Article 87 defines inside information as precise, non-public information that a reasonable holder would likely use as part of the basis of an investment decision. Article 88 makes issuers, offerors and persons seeking admission publish such information as soon as possible, forbids combining that disclosure with marketing, and requires it to stay on their website for at least five years. Article 89 prohibits insider dealing, including cancelling or amending an order you placed before you learned the information, and prohibits recommending or inducing insider dealing by anyone else. Article 90 prohibits passing the information on outside the normal exercise of a job, and Article 91 prohibits manipulation.
Where you see it
Market abuse rules reach an ordinary buyer through Article 92, which puts a monitoring duty on any person professionally arranging or executing crypto-asset transactions. Such a firm must run arrangements, systems and procedures to prevent and detect abuse, and must report a reasonable suspicion about an order, a cancellation, a modification or even the behaviour of the consensus mechanism to its national regulator without delay. An exchange applying for authorisation has to describe that detection system in its application, and Article 76 separately bars a fee structure that would reward orders contributing to disorderly trading. ESMA was told to issue supervisory guidelines on the same duty by 30 June 2025.
One prohibited behaviour is worth naming because it looks like ordinary internet content. Article 91(3)(c) treats it as manipulation to use occasional or regular access to media, traditional or electronic, to voice an opinion on a crypto-asset while already holding a position in it and profiting from the resulting price move, without disclosing that conflict at the same time. The paid thread promoting a token sits inside the regime, not beside it.
Market abuse rules vs Market manipulation
Market abuse rules are the whole of Title VI; market manipulation is one branch of it. Article 91 covers false or misleading signals, prices secured at an abnormal or artificial level, fictitious devices, dominant positions over supply, and order flooding that hides genuine orders from other traders. Insider dealing (Article 89) and unlawful disclosure (Article 90) are the other two prohibitions, while the publication duty in Article 88 is a separate obligation carrying a lower ceiling: at least EUR 2.5 million or 2% of turnover for a company, against EUR 15 million or 15% for the rest.