The Danish Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) has provided guidance on determining when a DeFi offering can be considered fully decentralized and thus exempt from regulation under MiCA.

The Danish Financial Supervisory Authority (DFSA) published guidance on 25 June 2024 explaining when a decentralized finance (DeFi) offering may fall outside the scope of the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) because it is considered fully decentralized. The DFSA said this matters because MiCA will regulate crypto-asset issuers and service providers, but an activity that is genuinely decentralized is exempt and does not require a license. In its guidance, the DFSA stressed that the exemption is narrow and that “significant criteria” must be met before an offering can be treated as fully decentralized. The agency said the key question is whether a counterparty can be identified for users to contract with; if no such counterparty exists, for example because the software is not controlled by any actor or control is structured so no contracting party can be identified, the activity may be classified as decentralized. The DFSA warned that misclassifying a regulated service as decentralized could mean providing services without authorization, and said it is available for dialogue on practical application of the principles.

✨ AI-generated background, compiled from web sources — not editorial content.

More coverage

• Is Crypto Legal in Denmark? Regulations & Compliance in 2026 (lightspark.com)
• MiCA Regulation and Licensing | Crypto Lawyers - Samar Law (samarlaw.dk)
• Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) (esma.europa.eu)
• DFSA | mica.wtf (mica.wtf)
• [PDF] isation in the markets for crypto-assets - Finanstilsynet (cdn.finanstilsynet.dk)

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