Consider this scenario: A crypto-asset (e.g. Bitcoin) is admitted to trading on a German MiCAR-authorised platform. A person outside the EU receives precise, non-public information that, if published, would likely have a significant effect on the Bitcoin price. The person then trades on an exchange outside the EU. MiCAR does not confine its insider-dealing rules to EU residents or EU trading venues. Market-abuse rules are applied to acts by any person, to transactions regardl

Avoid improvising under pressure - designing a disclosure process during an incident might force you to do exactly that. Therefore, before the first difficult case arises, institutions should know which events could become price-sensitive, who must escalate them, who assesses the information and who is authorised to disclose - or delay disclosure. That requires more than a legal policy. Security, legal, compliance, treasury, market operations and communications need a shared

A custody outage may trigger more than one regulatory process. Under DORA, it may have to be reported to the competent authority. Under MiCA, the same event may also constitute inside information - requiring public disclosure, trading restrictions, enhanced market surveillance or other market-abuse controls. The analysis becomes particularly complex where roles overlap: Some CASPs also issue their own tokens. Others may only hold price-sensitive information concerning third-p

The German Blockchain Association (Bundesblock) hosted its first dedicated event for crypto content creators yesterday: “No Financial Advice” – Crypto Content, MiCAR & the New Responsibilities of Creators.” Together with creators, influencers, founders, tax experts, and legal practitioners, we discussed how the regulatory landscape for crypto content is changing under MiCAR and related EU rules. Some of the legal questions are familiar: • Where does educational content end an

On 10 June 2026, I had the privilege of opening the 7th Blockchain Roundtable at the German Bundestag on behalf of the German Blockchain Association "Bundesblock". When we founded Bundesblock in 2017 with just 23 founding members, our inaugural meeting also took place in the Bundestag. Back then, blockchain was still considered a niche topic by many. Today, Bundesblock represents more than 130 members from industry and academia. Over the past years, the public debate has shif

Next week, I will have the pleasure of welcoming participants to the 7th Blockchain Roundtable in the German Bundestag on behalf of Blockchain Bundesverband (Bundesblock). The title of the event is "AI & Blockchain: Building Blocks of Digital Sovereignty." It is a timely topic. As a lawyer, I spend much of my time discussing regulation. But regulation alone does not create digital sovereignty. Sovereignty requires infrastructure, standards, interoperability, trusted instituti

Preparing for the Berlin Blockchain Week 2026 and the DARTE roundtable the right way 🧘🏻‍♀️ ​Join Marie Christin Rinke and me for a refreshing yoga & pilates session, some fresh air, and a moment of calm in Gleisdreieck Park - just across the street from w3.hub. ​The perfect way to start the day before diving into discussions on digital assets, crypto regulation, and taxation. After all, sometimes the best conference preparation is not another slide deck 😉. ​We'll stretch,

In my keynote about “Market Abuse in Web3” on the Nordic Blockchain Conference, I reminded on how much the conversation around insider dealing in crypto has matured - and how many blind spots still remain. For years, the industry mostly associated “insider trading” with the obvious headline cases: tipping relatives before a token listing or using privileged employer or customer data. These are the cases everyone immediately understands. What is far more interesting - and lega

One theme keeps coming up: A structural gap in the feedback loop between FIUs, law enforcement and obliged entities - this might quietly undermine AML effectiveness. Many of you know that I am currently preparing a Darte Session focused on how to make the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) AML regime more effective while also enhancing privacy protection for society at large. Talking to the private sector - financial institutions and CASPs - two pain points are raised again

TradFi Inside Information needs to be communicated via regulated disclosure channels and OAMs under the Transparency Directive. In crypto markets, inside information may rather need to be disseminated through social media and web-based platforms „when they appear to be the media which are reasonably relied upon by the public“

Stablecoins: For users: the question is where stablecoins can immediately improve treasury performance. For issuers: the question is how to build compliant, scalable, and supervision-ready infrastructure across jurisdictions and beyond the EU.

Comparison matrix: Art. 88 MiCAR vs. Art. 17 MAR, and Transparency Directive OAM framework

Real World Asset Tokenisation

Over the past two years, the DARTE Series took us across more than 28 cities, from Brussels to Washington, Helsinki to Buenos Aires, convening regulators, lawyers, and industry leaders to tackle the hardest questions in crypto regulation. One question kept coming back: how are crypto asset service providers supposed to disclose insider information publicly, verifiably, and in a way that actually holds up legally? I am proud to announce that Mariana de la Roche (my partn

25+ sessions. Hundreds of experts. One shared objective: legal clarity for digital assets. When we initiated the DARTE Series together with Mariana de la Roche Wills ( BlackVogel ), the idea was simple but ambitious: create a space where regulators, policymakers, industry leaders and legal experts could engage in serious, structured dialogue on digital asset regulation - beyond panel soundbites and conference noise. With the support of the European Commission (Joachim Sch

Multijurisdictional issuance of USD-based e-money tokens in the EU has hit a regulatory wall, and the answer is not more prohibitions. Co-authored withNordic Law and BlackVogel, our Joint Interpretive Note makes the case that supervisory authorities need to distinguish between risk assessment and legal constraint. The current frameworks can support these models. What's missing are shared operational standards that protect consumers without closing the door on a competitive Eu

In recent decades, Germany - like many modern democracies and also the EU - has developed a paradoxical condition: the state is strong, yet no longer comprehensible. Its powers are extensive, but its structure has become opaque. Citizens face an environment that is formally rational but substantively impenetrable. The problem is not weakness - it is overcomplexity . This excess of complexity is not accidental. It is the unintended consequence of a moral virtue: the pursuit of

Berlin Deep Tech Award 2026

DARTE Rome 2.0 with UNIDROIT

Yesterday, my Cybersecurity & Business Bachelor class at Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin gathered at Bitvavo ’s event space (many thanks for opening your doors to us, dear Niklas Becher !) We listen to these experts: 🤖 Alexandra Wudel talked about ethical AI in governmental use - and quickly made clear why this topic is so hard and yet so urgent. Ethical AI often sounds abstract, but the classic self-driving car dilemma captures the problem perfectly