EU regulators just made a CRUCIAL call on blockchain miners/validators under MiCA – excluding them from market abuse oversight. 

Why? Forcing them to police transactions would break blockchain’s neutral infrastructure

BIG win for credible neutrality 🧵

general counsel @ 1kx // co-founder @ thing3 // summoner @ hydra ventures

Miners/validators prioritize transactions based on fees, not market manipulation. Their role is technical – securing networks, not financial intermediation. 

ESMA agreed: requiring them to flag suspicious activity would be like asking road builders to police drivers.

This preserves network neutrality & protects censorship resistance – core to crypto’s ethos. 

If validators had to judge transaction legitimacy, it’d create gatekeepers. 

MiCA rightly avoids politicizing blockchain’s base layer

Link to full paper: https://www.esma.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2024-12/ESMA75-453128700-1278_Final_Report_STOR_MiCA_Article_92_2_.pdf

Sanctions angle: While miners stay neutral, CASPs (exchanges) MUST monitor flows. MiCA still empowers regulators to freeze funds at the exchange level

Cypherpunk win all the same: infrastructure ≠ financial actors