ECB's 57-Page MiCA Response Seeks Stablecoin Yield Ban on Lending and Staking

ECB Wants the Yield Ban to Reach Unregulated Products

The European Central Bank and the euro area's national central banks have asked the European Commission to extend the European Union's ban on paying interest to stablecoin holders, targeting the crypto lending, borrowing and staking products that currently deliver that yield outside the rule's reach. In a 57-page response filed with the Commission's targeted consultation on the MiCA review, the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) argued the prohibition “should not be limited to cases where CASPs offer services governed by MiCAR, but should apply also to unregulated services, such as crypto borrowing, lending and staking.” Crypto-asset service providers, or CASPs, are the licensed intermediaries MiCA already covers; the current ban applies to issuers and those intermediaries only. The central banks' core complaint is that yield reaches holders anyway: DeFi protocols show how stablecoins can be “transformed into yield-bearing arrangements through lending, staking or other layered structures,” the response states, sidestepping the direct ban. It named loyalty program benefits, liquidity mining incentives, rewards, fee reductions and bundled services as indirect payments that should also be caught. The legal footing is explicit: these tokens are electronic money, and “electronic money is intended to be used for making payments and not as a means of saving.”

Reserve Rules Shift From Deposits to Liquidity

The same document proposes loosening one existing requirement while tightening another. MiCA currently obliges stablecoin issuers to hold at least 30% of reserve assets as bank deposits, rising to 60% for tokens designated as significant. The ESCB wants those floors dropped and replaced with requirements on how quickly reserves can be converted into cash, starting from draft European Banking Authority standards: significant stablecoins would need 40% of reserves in assets maturing within a single working day and 60% within five working days, with thresholds of 20% and 30% for other tokens. The reasoning cuts both ways. Large stablecoin deposits can become an unstable funding source for banks, exposing lenders to sudden withdrawal pressure if an issuer must liquidate reserves to meet redemptions during a run. At the same time, banks currently serve as a captive, stable deposit base for issuers — a benefit that would disappear under a liquidity-maturity regime, with issuers likely shifting toward short-dated high-quality assets instead. The consultation closes on September 30, with the Commission's review report — which may carry a legislative proposal — due by mid-2027.

A Transatlantic Playbook Against Deposit Competition

The EU position mirrors a fight that has already played out in Washington. Eight U.S. banking groups previously urged senators to tighten the CLARITY Act's restrictions on stablecoin rewards, arguing that crypto platforms could otherwise offer interest-like returns competing directly with bank deposits; the bill nonetheless failed a 49-50 procedural vote, with ethics provisions also playing a role. If Brussels adopts the central banks' wording, the practical impact on European markets would be immediate and broad. Restaking-style yield products and lending protocols that let users deposit stablecoins to earn interest could breach the indirect remuneration ban, while exchange staking programs would need redesign. Even native staking economics fall in scope where wrapped stablecoins are involved — a notable stretch given that rewards for securing networks through Ethereum's consensus mechanism sit far from e-money rules today. For the Best Crypto Exchanges operating under EU licenses, the distinction between regulated and unregulated yield channels, currently the industry's main workaround, would be closed entirely. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Gate.

Mid-2027 Review Sets the Clock

Read together, the three threads trace one arc: central banks on both sides of the Atlantic are converging on the view that stablecoins must remain payment instruments, never savings substitutes. Our reading of the primary document — the ESCB's own response, a consultation submission rather than a binding rule — is that nothing here binds anyone yet: it addresses the Commission, whose review report is due by mid-2027, and any extension to lending and staking would require fresh legislation binding CASPs and issuers. The proposal-versus-final-rule gap is the story to watch through September 30's consultation deadline.