EU Considers Regulating DeFi Vaults Under MiCA, Experts Say Challenges Remain

ChainCatcher report, according to Cointelegraph, the European Commission is evaluating whether to include crypto lending—including DeFi vaults—within the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA). A targeted consultation on this matter was launched on May 20, 2026, with feedback due by September 30. Originally, MiCA excluded crypto lending and partially excluded fully decentralized activities, but Brussels is now reviewing these gaps. European digital assets lawyer Yuriy Brisov noted that EU law does not recognize a category called “vaults”; lawyers must define them by function rather than label. Vaults distribute economic functions such as lending across smart contracts and multiple parties—such as owners, curators, allocators, and sentinels in Morpho Vault V2—making it difficult to map them to a single regulated entity. Jonathan Galea, partner at Cahill, cautioned against treating “DeFi lending” as a single label, as doing so could result in a one-size-fits-all approach for structurally distinct products. Michael Egorov, founder of Curve, stated that if regulated, DeFi should be treated differently, as it does not require all the safeguards of traditional lending but may need other rules.