LITHUANIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Donatas Šliora and Marius Matiukas, ADON legal
Issuers of Asset-Referenced Tokens (ARTs) These tokens can be tied to a pool of assets, which can include one or more fiat currencies or commodities. The value of the ARTs is derived from the value of the underlying assets. Issuers and initial offerors of ARTs under MiCA have significant regulatory obligations owing to the potential systemic risks these crypto-assets may pose to their holders, and need authorisa - tion for such activity. Along with the crypto-asset White Paper, the issuing undertaking must also have in place various policies and procedures to ensure the liquidity and stability of the assets, as well as have qualified employees and sharehold - ers that are compliant with EU law. Issuers of EMTs EMTs are intended to maintain a stable value by referencing a single fiat currency. EMTs may only be issued, offered to the public or admitted to trading by credit institutions and e-money institutions. Such issuers and offerors of EMTs must also adhere to strict requirements similar to issuers of ARTs. What is also interesting under MiCA is that EMTs are classified as electronic money, meaning that the institutions issuing the EMTs will be obliged to ensure that the token can be redeemed at any time for its tied fiat currency. Issuers of Other Crypto-Assets Issuers and offerors of any other crypto-assets not classified as ARTs or EMTs – such as utility tokens – must also meet certain transparency and disclosure obligations, particularly when offering the tokens to the public or admitting them to trading on a platform.
Where crypto-assets are classified as financial instruments, their issuers and offerors fall under the Prospectus Regulation and MiFID II legisla - tion, and under the Law on Markets in Financial Instruments transposing them. One of the main elements ensuring the trans - parency of a crypto-asset and its holder’s pro - tection under MiCA is a uniform crypto-asset White Paper. There are certain exceptions where a White Paper is not needed (ie, owing to little relevance or type of a crypto-asset), but gener - ally every issuer of a crypto-asset will have to draw up a White Paper following the standards set out by the EU. All stablecoin issuers operating in EU jurisdic - tion must ensure their proper authorisation under MiCA. Until then, however, cryptocurrency exchanges operating in the EU will have to delist such crypto-assets from their trading platforms. 10.5 Regulation of Blockchain Asset Trading Platforms MiCA sets out uniform requirements for CASPs. Starting from 2025, all CASPs are subject to authorisation from their competent supervisory authorities. All applicants are required to: • provide documentation regarding their man - agement and stakeholder structures, pro - grammes of operations, various risk manage - ment policies and procedures (eg, AML/CTF, outsourcing, complaints handling and others); • meet specific capital, prudential require - ments; and • adhere to certain requirements regarding safeguarding of holders’ funds. 10.6 Staking National law does not have specific regulations addressing the provision of staking services
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