Netherlands: Token Classification

Asset-referenced tokens (ARTs) sit under a materially stricter regime: MiCA Title III authorisation applies, with heightened capital-buffer and liquidity requirements, and the European Banking Authority holds direct supervisory powers over any ART designated "significant" — a category that shifts supervisory responsibility upward from national to EU level for the largest tokens.

All other crypto-assets, including utility tokens, fall under MiCA Title II, which requires publication of a MiCA-compliant crypto-asset white paper before any public offering in the Netherlands. This is the default classification bucket and applies broadly across token types that do not qualify as EMTs or ARTs.

Non-fungible, genuinely unique crypto-assets (NFTs) remain generally excluded from MiCA scope, except where issued in large series or fractionalised in ways that erode their uniqueness. No Dutch-specific supplementary guidance narrowing or clarifying this NFT carve-out was identified this cycle, leaving the boundary question — at what point a large NFT series or a fractionalised NFT tips into MiCA scope — dependent on the general EU-level test rather than any national interpretive gloss.

Outlook

The classification taxonomy itself is not expected to shift materially in the near term; the more active question is at the margins, particularly the EMT/ART boundary for tokens approaching "significant" status and threshold under EBA's direct-supervision trigger, and whether NL-specific NFT guidance eventually emerges to resolve the large-series/fractionalisation boundary that remains open at EU level.