MiCA Marketing & Advertising Rules for CASPs: Articles 7, 9 and 66 Explained

Key Facts: MiCA Marketing Rules at a Glance

The Three-Article Framework: Articles 7, 9 and 66 Compared

MiCA's marketing regime is built on three distinct but interlocking provisions. Understanding which rule applies to whom — and when — is the first step in building a compliant communications programme. The table below sets out the core differences; the commentary that follows explains the practical consequences.

Article 7 is the substantive standard; Article 9 is the procedural gate. A firm can comply with every quality requirement in Article 7 and still breach Article 9 if it publishes marketing before the white paper has been notified to the competent authority. The two provisions work in sequence, not as alternatives. Article 66, by contrast, operates permanently and independently: it applies to every client-facing communication a CASP produces, whether or not any white paper is involved, and whether or not the CASP is itself an issuer. A CASP that is not an offeror has no duty under Article 66(3) to produce a white paper — but it must link to any white paper that already exists for the crypto-assets it lists, admits to trading, or advises on.

One practical consequence that catches firms off guard: a CASP acting as a distributor for a third-party token offer is simultaneously bound by Article 66 (as a CASP) and may be treated as a person seeking admission to trading (Article 9) if it plays a role in onboarding the asset to a platform. The CASP licence requirements guide covers the boundary between distribution and solicitation in more detail. For the white-paper consistency obligations that underpin both Articles 7 and 9, see the MiCA white-paper and iXBRL requirements guide.

What 'Fair, Clear and Not Misleading' Means in Practice

The "fair, clear and not misleading" standard under Article 66(1) is not a drafting guideline — it is an enforceable conduct obligation. In practice, it has four operative dimensions. First, honesty: a communication must accurately represent the nature, risks and costs of the crypto-asset service, and must be likely to be understood by its intended audience — not merely by a sophisticated reader. Second, completeness: omitting material information that a recipient would need to make an informed decision violates the standard even if everything stated is technically true. Selective disclosure — leading with projected yields while burying counterparty risks — is a canonical breach pattern. Third, no false regulatory halo: ESMA's July 2025 Statement on access to unregulated activities explicitly warns CASPs against implying that MiCA authorisation covers ancillary products or services that fall outside the licensed scope. A CASP may not present itself as "MiCA-regulated" in a way that leads clients to believe unregulated offerings carry the same supervisory oversight. Fourth, identifiability: marketing must be recognisable as marketing. Content designed to look like independent research or editorial commentary, when it is in fact promotional, fails this requirement regardless of medium.

Language is a compliance variable, not an afterthought. Article 66 requires that marketing communications be provided in a language clients understand. For CASPs targeting multiple EU jurisdictions through a single website or social campaign, this creates a concrete obligation: a communication that meets the standard in one language may still violate it if served to an audience that cannot adequately understand that language. Multi-jurisdictional firms should maintain documented localisation policies. On channel scope, ESMA's Final Report (29 April 2025) and the July 2025 Guidelines (ESMA75-453128700-1039) both confirm that social media posts, newsletters, podcasts and blog articles can constitute marketing communications subject to MiCA scrutiny. The format does not determine the obligation — the promotional intent and potential audience do.

Performance claims are the highest-risk content category under this standard. Past returns, projected yields, APY figures and staking reward estimates are not prohibited outright, but each one must be qualified, balanced and — critically — consistent with the information in the published MiCA-compliant white paper. A projected yield in an Instagram post that contradicts or materially diverges from the white paper disclosure creates simultaneous liability under Article 66(1) (misleading marketing) and Article 7 (white-paper consistency). Any performance claim should be accompanied by a clear, prominent risk warning of equivalent visual weight — not buried in footer text or obscured by design. NCAs reviewing marketing materials will compare claimed figures directly against white-paper disclosures; divergence is an enforcement trigger, not a minor editorial inconsistency.

Mandatory Risk Warnings: What to Include and Where

Article 66(2) of MiCA requires every CASP to include prescribed risk warnings in all marketing communications addressed to clients or prospective clients. The warning must state, at minimum, that crypto-assets are highly volatile, that past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results, that the value of a crypto-asset can go to zero, and that crypto-assets are not covered by deposit guarantee schemes or investor compensation schemes under EU law. These are not optional additions — they are mandatory disclosure elements, and their omission is a breach of the fair, clear and not misleading standard under Article 66(1).

Placement and prominence matter as much as content. A risk warning buried in a footnote, collapsed behind a "read more" toggle, or rendered in font smaller than the surrounding text will not satisfy the requirement. The warning must be legible, clearly separated from promotional copy, and presented before or alongside the call to action — not after it. The risk warning must appear in every individual marketing communication, not once on a general risk disclosure page linked from a footer. Firms relying on a single T&C reference point are exposed. The Article 66(2) obligation is distinct from the white-paper risk disclosure required under Article 7, which applies to offerors publishing a crypto-asset white paper: that disclosure covers issuer-specific risks tied to the specific asset, whereas the Article 66(2) warning is a generic but mandatory floor for all CASP marketing activity, regardless of which asset is being promoted.

The separate obligation under Article 66(3) — to include a hyperlink to the relevant white paper in marketing materials where one exists — supplements the risk warning requirement but does not replace it. A link to a compliant white paper does not discharge the Article 66(2) duty; both obligations run in parallel. The table below maps required warning levels across common communication types.

For offerors, the Article 7 white-paper risk section must cover risks specific to the issuer, the token, and the project — it is asset-level disclosure, not a generic statement. CASPs distributing those tokens in secondary markets carry the ongoing Article 66(2) obligation independently. White paper requirements under MiCA, including iXBRL formatting obligations, are covered separately. Firms that are both offeror and CASP must comply with both regimes simultaneously — there is no consolidation exception.

White-Paper Consistency and Article 66(3) Hyperlink Duty

MiCA imposes two distinct but reinforcing obligations that CASPs and offerors must not conflate. Under Articles 7 and 9, offerors are required to ensure that every marketing communication is fully consistent with the published white paper. If a promotional post projects higher potential returns than those disclosed in the white paper, downplays the risk factors set out there, or describes the asset's features in terms that diverge materially from the white-paper description, that divergence is a direct Article 9 breach — regardless of how the communication is framed or which channel it appears on. The white paper is the compliance anchor; marketing materials must reflect it precisely, and when a material change occurs, Article 12 requires the white paper itself to be updated. Marketing materials must be revised in lockstep — not after the fact.

The second obligation arises under Article 66(3) and applies to specified CASPs: trading platform operators, firms exchanging crypto-assets for funds or for other crypto-assets, advisers, and portfolio managers. These entities must include a hyperlink to any existing and publicly available white paper in their mandatory disclosures to clients. The critical word is "existing" — Article 66(3) creates a disclosure duty, not a production duty. If no white paper has been published for a given asset, there is no obligation under Article 66(3) alone to create one. The hyperlink requirement is a transparency mechanism that presupposes a white paper already exists and is publicly accessible.

ESMA Q&A 2654 (published 14 October 2025) does not change this picture for new offerings. That Q&A addressed a specific transitional scenario: the allocation of responsibility between offerors and CASPs for white papers covering Title II crypto-assets that were already admitted to trading before 30 December 2024. It is not a general exemption from white-paper obligations. For any new public offer of a Title II crypto-asset made after MiCA's full application date, the complete obligations under Articles 4–6 and Article 9 — including white-paper preparation, notification to the relevant NCA, and marketing-communication consistency — apply in full. CASPs that read Q&A 2654 as a broad carve-out from white-paper duties for live offerings would be misreading a narrow transitional clarification as substantive permission. The safer and legally correct position is to treat the white paper as the floor of all product communications, and to update both documents simultaneously whenever material facts change.

ESMA's Market-Abuse Guidelines and What They Mean for CASP Communications

ESMA published its Guidelines on supervisory practices to prevent and detect market abuse under MiCA (ESMA75-453128700-1039) on 9 July 2025, following the Final Report (ESMA75-453128700-1408) dated 29 April 2025. Both documents are grounded in Article 92(3) MiCA, which mandates ESMA to issue guidelines to promote convergent supervisory approaches across national competent authorities. NCAs are required to apply these Guidelines within three months of the 9 July 2025 publication date — meaning the supervisory framework is now actively operational across the EU. For CASP compliance and marketing teams, this is not a distant regulatory aspiration; it is live NCA practice.

The Guidelines have four direct implications for how CASPs manage their communications. First, Guideline 8 establishes data-driven surveillance that explicitly includes publicly available social-media data — meaning posts, threads, newsletters, blogs and podcasts are all within the scope of NCA monitoring, not just on-exchange order flow. Second, CASPs that arrange or execute transactions qualify as PPAETs (persons professionally arranging or executing transactions) under MiCA Title VI and are therefore required to have adequate internal systems capable of detecting and preventing market abuse through their communications channels — including monitoring of staff accounts and affiliate or influencer content published on the firm's behalf. Third, governance proportionality: NCAs will assess whether a CASP's communications-monitoring framework is proportionate to its size, asset types and trading volumes — a large exchange operating a trading platform faces a materially higher bar than a smaller portfolio-management-only firm. Fourth, and critically for compliance teams, if a CASP's review of its own marketing output — a price-prediction post, a reach campaign, an influencer activation — leads to a reasonable suspicion that the communication may have contributed to price manipulation or the dissemination of false information, a Suspicious Transaction and Order Report (STOR) obligation under MiCA Title VI may be triggered. The marketing function and the compliance function cannot operate as silos.

In practice, this means CASP marketing teams need documented pre-publication review workflows that loop in compliance, clear escalation paths when content raises market-integrity concerns, and a maintained record of what was published, when, and who approved it. Firms that treat their social media presence as outside the regulatory perimeter are directly at odds with how NCAs are now instructed to surveil the market. For a full breakdown of STOR obligations — including thresholds, timing and submission mechanics — see MiCA Title VI: Market Abuse, STOR Reporting and CASP Obligations.

Finfluencer and Affiliate Compliance Under MiCA

MiCA contains no dedicated "finfluencer" article, but the compliance framework is unambiguous: any marketing communication published by a third party on behalf of a CASP falls under the Article 7 and Article 66 standards, because the CASP remains the regulated entity accountable for that content. Outsourcing distribution to an influencer or affiliate does not transfer the liability — it only adds a layer of execution risk. If an influencer's post is not fair, clear and not misleading, the CASP that authorised, funded or directed that promotion is the entity facing supervisory action. NCAs are not required to pursue the influencer first.

ESMA's Guidelines published 9 July 2025 (ESMA75-453128700-1039) specifically flag influential individuals with large follower bases as a high-risk vector for market-integrity breaches under MiCA's market-abuse framework. Regulators will apply heightened scrutiny to CASPs whose brand ambassadors or affiliate networks have significant reach — meaning a viral campaign is not a compliance asset, it is a supervisory trigger. Separately, undisclosed paid promotions create a compounding problem: failing to identify content as a marketing communication can simultaneously breach Article 66(1) and applicable national consumer-advertising law, resulting in parallel enforcement tracks from both the NCA and a national advertising authority.

Practically, every CASP working with influencers or affiliates should build three controls into its commercial agreements and internal processes. First, pre-publication compliance approval must be contractually required — no influencer content goes live without sign-off from the CASP's compliance function, including review of all risk warnings and performance-claim restrictions. Affiliate contracts should explicitly prohibit any guarantee of returns, any implication that the CASP holds authorisations it does not hold, and any omission of the mandatory risk warnings required under Article 66. Second, all paid promotions must be labelled clearly as marketing communications at first view — burying a disclosure hashtag is insufficient. Third, maintain a timestamped approval log for every piece of influencer or affiliate content, recording the version reviewed, the approver's identity and the date of sign-off. This log is the primary evidence a CASP will need to demonstrate supervisory cooperation if content is later challenged by an NCA. See the seven most common MiCA compliance mistakes for related pitfalls that frequently arise in affiliate-driven growth strategies.

Google Ads CASP Policy: Where All Three Transition Windows Have Now Closed

Google updated its EU crypto advertising policy on 23 April 2025, requiring that any advertiser promoting crypto exchanges or software wallets across all 27 EU member states hold a valid CASP authorisation under Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 (MiCA). The policy operates on a per-country certification model: holding a MiCA licence from one NCA does not automatically unlock advertising in every member state — advertisers must obtain Google's direct certification for each country they target. Hardware wallets that solely store private keys and offer no trading or exchange functionality are treated as a separate category and fall outside this specific requirement. For everything else — spot exchanges, software wallets, staking interfaces — the rule is now uniform across the EU: full MiCA CASP authorisation or no Google Ads.

Three national-licence transition windows were granted to give firms operating under pre-MiCA domestic registrations time to migrate. All three have now closed. Finland's window closed on 30 June 2025. Germany's window — which accepted a BaFin national licence in lieu of a full MiCA authorisation — closed on 30 December 2025. France's window, which had accepted AMF DASP registration, closed on 1 July 2026. As of the date of this article, Google no longer accepts AMF DASP registration for crypto advertising in France. Any firm still relying on a legacy national registration to run Google Ads in any of these three jurisdictions is now in breach of Google's policy — and, where marketing activity is conducted at scale without proper authorisation, potentially in breach of MiCA's own marketing obligations under Article 66 as well.

The practical implication is straightforward: any CASP or affiliate running Google Ads in the EU without MiCA CASP authorisation is now out of policy — with no remaining grace periods anywhere in the bloc. Beyond Google's certification requirement, advertisers must also comply with all applicable national legal requirements that go beyond MiCA itself (consumer protection rules, local financial promotion regimes, language requirements). If your firm is still in the MiCA authorisation pipeline, pausing EU-targeted paid search is the lower-risk posture. See our complete CASP licence requirements guide for what the authorisation process involves and realistic timelines.

Pre-Publication Compliance Checklist for CASP Marketing Teams

Every marketing communication a CASP publishes — whether a product page, a social post, a paid banner, or an influencer brief — must clear a defined compliance gate before it goes live. The checklist below maps directly to the obligations under Articles 7, 9 and 66 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1114. It is designed to be used by compliance officers and marketing leads together, not as a post-hoc audit tool but as a pre-publication block.

This checklist does not replace your internal marketing policy or legal review process — it supplements them. Teams should version-control completed checklists and retain them for at least five years alongside the marketing materials they cover, consistent with the record-keeping obligations that apply under MiCA and the white paper disclosure framework. For influencer campaigns specifically, the pre-approval obligation under Article 66(6) means the log must exist before the content is posted, not after.

Sanctions for Marketing Violations: Article 111 and NCA Powers

Marketing violations under MiCA are not a soft compliance risk. Article 111 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 establishes administrative sanctions that national competent authorities must have the power to impose, and the penalty structure is deliberately asymmetric to reflect the severity of different infringements. For legal persons, the minimum fine floor is €5,000,000 as a flat sum, or a percentage of total annual turnover — with that percentage ranging from 3% to 12.5% depending on the type and gravity of the breach. The 12.5% ceiling is reserved for the most serious violations, including those involving significant asset-referenced tokens where the market-integrity risk is highest. For natural persons — including directors and senior managers — the minimum fine floor is €700,000. These are minimums: member states may and in several cases do set higher maxima in their transposing legislation.

Beyond the fine itself, Article 114 requires NCAs to publish their enforcement decisions, including the identity of the firm or individual sanctioned, the nature of the breach, and the sanction imposed. This publication obligation means the reputational consequence of a marketing infringement can far exceed the monetary penalty — particularly for CASPs whose business depends on retail trust. NCAs also hold operational intervention powers that can take effect faster than a formal fine: they can require the immediate withdrawal or correction of non-compliant marketing materials, suspend a CASP's authorisation to provide specific services, and compel issuers to amend or withdraw white papers and related marketing content found to be incomplete or misleading. These powers apply independently of any fine and can be exercised on an urgent basis where investor harm is imminent.

The enforcement picture becomes significantly more serious when misleading marketing crosses into conduct covered by MiCA Title VI. A marketing communication that artificially inflates the perceived value of a crypto-asset, or that discloses inside information selectively through a promotional channel, can constitute market manipulation or unlawful disclosure under Articles 89–92 — triggering a parallel and potentially higher sanction regime entirely separate from the Article 111 marketing-specific penalties. The ESMA Guidelines on supervisory practices (ESMA75-453128700-1039, 9 July 2025) make clear that NCAs are expected to treat marketing channels as a live source of market-abuse signals and to coordinate STORs accordingly. Compliance teams should treat marketing review and market-abuse monitoring as a single integrated function, not two separate workstreams. For the full picture on what a compliant CASP authorisation looks like before any of these obligations arise, see the CASP licence requirements guide.

Frequently asked questions

Do all MiCA marketing rules apply equally to Articles 7, 9 and 66?

No — they serve different functions. Articles 7 and 9 bind offerors and persons seeking admission to trading of Title II crypto-assets (other than ARTs and EMTs): all marketing communications must be fair, clear and not misleading, identifiable as marketing, and consistent with the published white paper. Article 66(1) applies to all CASPs on an ongoing basis for every communication addressed to clients or potential clients. Article 66(3) adds a specific hyperlink obligation for certain CASPs (trading platform operators, exchange providers, advisers and portfolio managers) to include links to any available white papers — but does not require a CASP to create a white paper if one does not exist.

Can a CASP be held liable for content posted by a finfluencer or affiliate?

Yes. Under MiCA, a CASP cannot outsource its compliance liability by delegating communications to a third-party influencer or affiliate. If content published on the CASP's behalf is not fair, clear and not misleading — or fails to identify itself as marketing — the CASP bears primary regulatory responsibility. Affiliate agreements should require pre-publication compliance approval, mandatory risk-warning inclusion, and a prohibition on performance guarantees. Compliance teams should maintain timestamped approval logs for all third-party content.

Does France's AMF DASP registration still allow Google Ads for crypto exchanges?

No. As of 1 July 2026, Google no longer accepts AMF Digital Asset Service Provider (DASP) registration as a qualifying licence for advertising cryptocurrency exchanges or software wallets in France. All three transitional windows in Google's EU crypto-ad policy have now closed: Finland (30 June 2025), Germany (30 December 2025) and France (1 July 2026). Full MiCA CASP authorisation from a relevant national competent authority, plus Google's own certification, is now required across all 27 EU member states.

What risk warnings must appear in crypto marketing communications?

MiCA requires CASPs to warn clients that crypto-assets are highly volatile, that past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results, that the value of crypto-assets can fall to zero, and that crypto-assets are not covered by deposit guarantee or investor compensation schemes. The warning must be prominent and legible — not buried in footnotes or terms and conditions. The precise format requirements are further specified in Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/885 on market abuse RTS. Offerors under Article 7 must additionally state in every marketing communication that a white paper has been published and provide its website address.

What are the maximum fines for MiCA marketing violations?

Under Article 111 of MiCA, administrative fines for legal persons start at a minimum flat amount of at least €5,000,000, or a percentage of annual turnover ranging from 3% to 12.5% depending on the type and severity of the infringement — whichever is higher. For natural persons, the minimum fine floor is at least €700,000. The higher turnover percentages (up to 12.5%) apply to the most serious violations. In addition, NCAs may require the withdrawal of non-compliant marketing materials, suspend CASP authorisation, and publish enforcement decisions under Article 114 — creating significant reputational exposure beyond the monetary fine.

Do ESMA's July 2025 market-abuse guidelines create new direct obligations for CASP marketing teams?

The guidelines (ESMA75-453128700-1039, published 9 July 2025, applying three months after publication) are addressed to NCAs rather than CASPs directly. However, they have significant indirect implications: NCAs are expected to use social media, blogs, newsletters and podcasts as surveillance inputs for detecting market manipulation. CASPs classified as PPAETs must have adequate systems to prevent and detect market abuse through communications, proportional to their size and risk profile. A marketing communication that spreads false or misleading information about a crypto-asset's value could trigger a STOR obligation under MiCA Title VI.