Regardless of your views on Ethena, the enforcement action by German regulators is our first look at how MiCA will be interpreted.
My German was never fantastich, and is only what I recall from college, but this (anonymized) case in Frankfurt appears to be about Ethena
As usual, there’s several layers to the BaFin (regulator) complaint vs Ethena. But it seems to boil down to a determination that sUSDe is a security, offering USDe means you’re also offering sUSDe, and if it’s a security then you MUST have a prospectus
Bad argument if you ask me
I can’t really tell how the court determined that sUSDe was a security. It appears to just take BaFin at their word? But this seems to set a bad precedent for stables under MiCA if this can lead down the road that permissionless staking could also be yield.
Ethena case didn’t get that far, however. No prospectus, so in violation.
I’m not sure if the €600k fine for failure to comply with BaFin orders is directly downstream of this or if that was more about encumbered and unsegregated reserve assets
Speaking narrowly of the security-prospectus issue, this strikes me as poor regulation around rules that failed to consider how staking should fit into MiCA.
Ethena got a raw deal here, with a disproportionate response (again, speaking narrowly on the prospectus issue)
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