Settlement Glossary
Asset-referenced token (ART)
An asset-referenced token is MiCA's category for a token that stabilizes its value against anything other than a single official currency, such as a basket of currencies, commodities, or other assets, under the regulation's heaviest authorization regime.
The asset-referenced token is the category MiCA built for the stablecoins that are not quite currencies. Where an e-money token references one official currency and inherits an e-money-style rulebook, the ART covers everything else that claims a stable value: baskets of currencies, commodities, other tokens, or mixtures of them. It is the EU’s answer to a question asked urgently in 2019, when a private consortium proposed a global token backed by a basket of sovereign currencies, and regulators contemplated private money floating between monetary areas.
The regime is deliberately demanding. An ART issuer needs its own MiCA authorization, a segregated reserve of assets matching the token’s reference, own-funds requirements, governance and disclosure obligations, and redemption rights for holders. Tokens that grow large enough can be designated significant, moving them under the European Banking Authority’s direct supervision with stricter requirements again. The design intent is legible: if a token behaves like a parallel currency, it will be supervised like an institution that issues one.
What happened next is the interesting part: almost nothing. The basket-token projects that motivated the category dissolved before the rules arrived, payments demand concentrated in single-currency tokens, and authorization activity since 30 June 2024 has flowed almost entirely to EMTs. As of early 2026 no ART had been designated significant, and authorized ARTs remain rare. The category functions less as a market and more as a fence, marking the line a stablecoin crosses when it stops referencing one currency, and connecting directly to the singleness of money concern: money that trades at a value of its own is a problem central banks prefer to preclude.
For institutions the practical takeaway is simple. In the EU, a stablecoin usable for payments will almost always be an EMT; an ART in a payment flow is a flag for extra diligence, because it is a different instrument under a different rulebook, however similar the marketing sounds.
Common questions
- What is an asset-referenced token under MiCA?
- It is the EU category for stabilized tokens that reference something other than one official currency: a basket of currencies, one or more commodities, other tokens, or any combination. Issuers need a dedicated MiCA authorization, must hold and segregate a reserve of assets, and face governance, disclosure, and own-funds requirements. Tokens referencing a single currency fall into the e-money token category instead.
- Are there any authorized ARTs?
- Very few. Since MiCA's stablecoin provisions took effect on 30 June 2024, authorization activity has concentrated overwhelmingly in e-money tokens, and as of early 2026 no token had been designated a significant ART under the EBA's direct supervision. The category exists mostly as a boundary: it defines what a currency-referencing stablecoin is not allowed to quietly become.
- Why does the ART category see so little use?
- Demand and burden point the same way. Payments demand concentrates in tokens that track one currency, which are EMTs by definition, while a basket-referencing token is harder to use as money and carries a heavier authorization. The category was drafted with earlier basket-style projects in mind, and those projects largely disappeared before the regime arrived.
Related terms
Sources
Last reviewed 2026-07-16