TLDR:

• OpenAI’s 2025 net loss hit $38.5 billion despite revenue tripling to $13.07 billion overall.
• Uber, Amazon and JPMorgan now restrict employee AI usage after costs spiraled unexpectedly.
• Anthropic and OpenAI filed confidentially for IPOs, both targeting valuations near $850 billion.
• Chinese models DeepSeek and Kimi undercut Anthropic and OpenAI pricing in benchmark cost tests.

Anthropic and OpenAI are pushing toward public markets while facing mounting questions about AI spending sustainability.

OpenAI posted a $38.5 billion net loss in 2025, even as revenue tripled to $13.07 billion. Rising pay-per-token costs have prompted major employers to limit staff usage, raising doubts about near-term profitability for both companies.

Enterprise Costs Spark Internal Crackdowns

Several large corporations have begun restricting employee access to AI tools after expenses climbed sharply. Uber reportedly exhausted its 2026 AI budget by April and now caps spending at $1,500 per employee monthly.

Amazon told staff to avoid using AI tools without clear purpose, following reports that engineers ran automated agents to climb internal usage leaderboards.

JPMorgan circulated an internal memo this month addressing excessive AI spending across departments. Some employees reportedly generated AI bills exceeding their own monthly salaries.

These examples reflect a broader pattern among companies that adopted AI tools aggressively over the past two years.

One pricing shift illustrates the scale of the problem. Workato saw its Anthropic bill increase 700% in a single day after the company moved from flat-rate to pay-per-token pricing in May.

Workato’s chief information officer said earlier subsidized pricing had encouraged widespread adoption before actual costs became visible.

IPO Timing Collides With Spending Concerns

Anthropic and OpenAI filed confidentially for public offerings this month, both reportedly targeting valuations near $850 billion.

Neither company has reached profitability, and OpenAI’s losses nearly tripled year over year. In 2024, the company lost $5.09 billion, a figure that grew to $38.5 billion in 2025.

This timing creates friction for both firms as they court investor confidence. Public offerings typically require evidence of sustainable revenue growth, yet enterprise clients are simultaneously scaling back usage. The same trend driving corporate cost-cutting threatens the growth narrative needed for successful IPO valuations.

OpenAI is reportedly considering token price reductions to retain customers shifting toward Anthropic’s offerings. According to the Wall Street Journal, Anthropic’s Claude Code product helped push annualized revenue from $9 billion to $47 billion within five months. That growth has intensified competitive pressure between the two firms.

Competitive Pricing Pressure Intensifies From Chinese Models

Artificial Analysis tested major AI models on identical benchmark tasks, comparing total operational costs. Anthropic’s flagship model cost $4,811 to complete the test suite, while OpenAI’s model cost $3,357 for the same workload.

Chinese alternatives showed substantially lower costs in the same testing. DeepSeek completed the benchmark for $1,071, while Kimi finished for $948.

These figures suggest Chinese developers prioritize cost efficiency over matching premium-tier performance metrics.

Bain surveyed nearly 1,000 companies regarding AI return on investment, finding that 40% reported actual cost savings below 10%.

One investor told Axios that a corporate finance officer spent $500 million on Claude access in a single month before anyone noticed.

As Anthropic and OpenAI prepare investor pitches, enterprise customers are demonstrating measurable resistance to current pricing structures.

The European Commission has opened a public consultation on proposed updates to the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework, signaling that Brussels plans to refine how its landmark crypto rules address newer parts of the market. The consultation—initiated in May—comes as full application and enforcement of MiCA began on December 30, 2024, with the first licensing steps rolling out in the early months of 2025.

Some in the industry have already started calling the expected revision “MiCA 2.0,” with regulators aiming to tackle gaps left by the initial law. According to Katie Harries, director and head of policy for Europe at Coinbase, refinements could help keep the EU’s framework “competitive” as digital-asset regulation moves into a second phase—particularly for decentralized finance (DeFi), stablecoins, and tokenization-related activity.

Key takeaways

• Brussels’ consultation is structured to adjust MiCA’s scope and definitions, tighten rules for certain token categories, and broaden coverage to topics not addressed in MiCA 1.0.
• Stablecoin policy is expected to be highly political because the rules could change depending on whether stablecoins are treated like trading instruments or payment infrastructure.
• For DeFi, regulators are looking for practical ways to evaluate “how decentralized” a crypto-asset service provider (CASP) is, rather than treating decentralization as a simple yes-or-no concept.
• EU lawmakers are also seeking input on prediction markets, including whether existing EU regimes would apply and where potential conflicts between frameworks might arise.
• The consultation runs until Aug. 31, but industry observers expect the legislative process to take years, with concrete proposals unlikely before 2028.

MiCA set the baseline—now the EU wants to recalibrate

MiCA’s rollout marked the EU’s attempt to establish a unified approach across member states, replacing fragmented national rules. Harries told Cointelegraph that MiCA “helped set an early global benchmark for digital asset regulation” and gave the EU a “first-mover advantage” by delivering a single, harmonised rulebook for crypto.

In practical terms, Harries said the law is meant to give consumers more transparency and protection, while giving businesses enough regulatory clarity to plan investment and expansion across the bloc. For Coinbase, she added, MiCA has also served as a foundation to scale operations in Europe into the next stage of adoption for both retail and institutional users.

Even so, Brussels is now preparing changes ahead of revisions and additions to the framework. The Commission’s consultation is divided into four parts: updating regulatory scope and definitions for crypto assets other than asset-referenced tokens (ARTs) and e-money tokens (EMTs); setting requirements for EMTs, ARTs and their issuers; defining a legal framework for crypto-asset service providers (CASPs); and addressing areas that MiCA 1.0 did not cover—such as DeFi and prediction markets.

Stablecoins: the use-case determines the regulatory priority

One section of the consultation stands out for its potential downstream effects: stablecoins and related requirements. Catarina Veloso, director of regulatory and compliance at Notabene, described the stablecoin-focused part as the “longest and arguably the most politically charged” segment of the process.

Veloso noted that the way stablecoins are used—whether as a mainstream retail payment tool, a wholesale settlement rail, or as a supplement to existing cross-border payment methods—could heavily influence what rules the EU ultimately prioritizes.

In her view, if stablecoins are treated mainly as crypto trading instruments, regulators may concentrate on investor protection and market integrity. If they are treated more like payment infrastructure, the regulatory center of gravity shifts toward redemption mechanics, liquidity requirements, reserve management, operational resilience, and supervisory reporting.

That shift matters because the risk profile of stablecoins can vary depending on scale, who uses them, and where they sit inside the broader financial system. “What risks they carry,” Veloso said, “depend heavily on how they are used, at what scale, by whom, and in connection with which parts of the financial system.”

Coinbase’s policy priorities focus on making euro stablecoins more competitive within the EU rule set. Harries said Coinbase would like MiCA 2.0 to recalibrate elements including reserve rules, stablecoin rewards, and the multi-issuance model. She argued that allowing a larger share of reserves to be held in “high-quality sovereign assets” could reduce risk without undermining safety.

Another issue is rewards. Veloso pointed out that EMT issuers are currently prohibited from offering interest, which she said can weaken the competitiveness of euro-denominated stablecoins. In practice, that could push users either toward foreign-currency stablecoins or toward yield strategies that sit outside the regulated perimeter.

Harries said Coinbase wants MiCA to permit non-interest incentives—such as cashback and loyalty programmes—stating that these are common features in payments and may support consumer choice and competition.

DeFi under MiCA: regulators want measurable decentralization

A core limitation of MiCA 1.0 is that it does not cover CASPs that are “fully decentralized” and operate without intermediaries. But Veloso cautioned that decentralization is rarely binary in reality.

To build a workable policy, regulators need a way to assess the degree of decentralization and decide which indicators should matter. That includes whether the protocol is under particular control, who holds governance rights, the status of administrative keys, whether the front-end is controlled by a central party, who captures revenue, how upgrades are handled, and whether identifiable persons can materially influence outcomes.

Veloso also said regulators are looking for practical rules to determine when the EU should treat access to DeFi platforms as a regulated service. She explained that, even if platforms themselves are exempt because they are decentralized, the broader question is whether firms that connect users to those platforms should still conduct due diligence obligations vis-à-vis their clients.

Legal practitioners highlighted that this is already a live compliance question. Miroslav Đurić, a senior associate at Taylor Wessing, said many CASPs already connect clients with DeFi platforms, and because those platforms are exempt, regulators are now asking whether CASPs should meet fiduciary duty expectations through due diligence.

Đurić also noted that the Commission may consider different approaches, potentially including options that restrict client connections to DeFi platforms only if they are certified under a future certification regime.

Prediction markets: fitting them into EU frameworks may be tricky

Prediction markets are another area where MiCA’s initial scope is not fully settled. The EU currently lacks a unified regulatory structure for these markets, and they are banned in some member states.

The consultation seeks views on whether prediction markets provide economic benefits for consumers, and whether they should fall under MiCA or the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID). Đurić said the answer depends on the specific contracts offered by each platform.

Because event contracts can have different characteristics, a platform operator could find itself subject to multiple, sometimes conflicting regimes—ranging from MiFID II rules to gambling-related regulation or potentially MiCA requirements—depending on contract structure.

Deadlines—and the long timeline ahead

Crypto industry observers say they plan to remain engaged with Brussels during the consultation process. Harries said an effective MiCA 2.0 will require ongoing “dialogue between industry, policymakers and regulators,” including learning from how the existing framework works in practice and refining parts where additional clarity or flexibility could support the next phase of growth.

While the comment period ends on Aug. 31, Đurić suggested the broader legislative process could take years. He said it is unlikely that concrete legislative proposals will be adopted before 2028, given both the complexity of the topics and the usual pace of EU lawmaking.

For market participants, the key next step is watching how regulators decide to translate stablecoin and DeFi policy questions into enforceable definitions—especially around how decentralization is assessed and how payment-versus-trading use cases shape the rules. Those choices will likely determine how quickly the EU’s second-phase framework can become operational for issuers, platforms, and intermediaries.

In May, the European Commission opened a comment period, seeking feedback on regulations for the cryptocurrency and blockchain industries. 

The comment period will precede eventual revisions and additions to the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) legislative framework. Some have already dubbed the expected new framework “MiCA 2.0.”

Katie Harries, director and head of policy for Europe at Coinbase, told Cointelegraph that there are several key areas where “refinements could help ensure the framework remains competitive in the next phase of digital asset regulation.”

With an updated version of EU crypto law, the crypto industry is looking for more regulatory clarity in DeFi, stablecoins and tokenization.

MiCA was just the first step

Full application and enforcement of MiCA rules began on December 30, 2024, with the first licenses issued in the first months of 2025.

While the legislative process was long and complex, the EU still managed to create a regulatory framework for crypto ahead of the United States. Per Harries, “MiCA helped set an early global benchmark for digital asset regulation and gave the EU a first-mover advantage.”

It represented an “important first move” for the EU which created a “a single, harmonised rulebook for crypto” among its member states. “It gave consumers greater protection and transparency, while providing businesses with the regulatory clarity needed to build, invest and grow across the bloc.”

Harries said that, for Coinbase, MiCA provided a foundation on which it can expand its business in Europe into “the next phase of adoption across both retail and institutional markets.”

Now, Brussels is looking to recalibrate its landmark legislation. The consultation is split into four parts:

1. Regulatory scope and definitions for crypto assets other than asset-referenced tokens (ARTs) and e-money tokens (EMTs)
2. Requirements for EMTs, ARTs and their issuers
3. Defining legal framework for crypto-asset service providers (CASPs)
4. Topics that MiCA 1.0 didn’t cover e.g., DeFi and prediction markets

Stablecoin discussion has regulatory consequences

Per Catarina Veloso, director of regulatory and compliance at Notabene, part 2, which would affect stablecoins, is “longest and arguably the most politically charged section of the consultation.”

How stablecoins are used, be it as a mainstream retail payment instrument, a wholesale settlement rail, or a “complement to existing payment methods for cross-border payments,” could have a significant effect on how stablecoin policy is made.

“If stablecoins are treated mainly as crypto trading instruments, the focus is likely to remain on investor protection and market integrity. If they are treated as payment infrastructure, then redemption, liquidity, reserve management, operational resilience and supervisory reporting become much more central.”

What risks they carry “depend heavily on how they are used, at what scale, by whom, and in connection with which parts of the financial system.”

Harries said that Coinbase would like to see MiCA 2.0 “make euro stablecoins more competitive by recalibrating rules around reserves, rewards and the multi-issuance model.” Allowing a greater share of stablecoin reserves to be held in “high-quality sovereign assets could reduce risk without compromising safety.”

Another aspect is stablecoin rewards. Currently, EMT issuers are prohibited from offering interest. But, per Veloso, “this can weaken the competitiveness of euro-denominated stablecoins and push users either toward foreign-currency stablecoins or toward yield structures outside the regulated perimeter.”

Harries said that “MiCA should allow non-interest incentives such as cashback and loyalty programmes, which are standard features across payments and help drive competition and consumer choice.”

Bringing DeFi and prediction markets into the fold

Presently, MiCA does not cover CASPs that are fully decentralized and operate without any kind of intermediary. Veloso noted that, while it sounds simple, “decentralisation is rarely binary.”

To form an informed policy around DeFi, EU regulators must know how to assess whether a CASP is fully decentralized and “what indicators should matter: control over the protocol, governance rights, admin keys, front-end control, revenue capture, upgradeability, or the ability of identifiable persons to influence outcomes.”

According to Miroslav Đurić, a senior associate at Taylor Wessing, many CAPSs already connect their clients with DeFi platforms. But since these platforms are exempt from MiCA, regulators are now asking “whether CASPs should meet their fiduciary duty vis-à-vis clients by conducting due diligence over DeFi platforms that they make accessible to their clients.”

“The Commission appears to be ready to explore different approaches incl. some that might only permit CASPs to connect their clients with DeFi platforms that are certified (under some new certification regime).”

Prediction markets are also a hot topic currently considered in the EU. Currently there is no unified regulatory structure, and prediction markets are banned in some countries. 

The Commission is seeking comments on whether these offer any economic benefit for consumers, and whether they fall under MiCA or Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFD).

Đurić said this will depend on the nature of the contracts themselves. “Depending on the event contracts available on the platform […] a platform operator can easily become subject to requirements stipulated under different, sometimes conflicting regulatory frameworks: ranging from MiFID II over gambling to MiCA regulatory framework.”

What’s next?

Crypto industry observers say they intend to remain in dialogue with Brussels throughout the process. Harries said that a new, effective MiCA will require “dialogue between industry, policymakers and regulators, learning from how the framework is working in practice and refining areas where greater clarity or flexibility can help support the next phase of growth across the region.”

The period for comment ends on Aug. 31, but according to Đurić, the total process could take years. 

“Given the level of complexity of the points raised in the consultation as well as the usual pace at which the EU legislative process moves […] it is hardly expectable that any concrete legislative proposals will be adopted before 2028.”