For several weeks now, the United States has been laying the groundwork for a strategy that is clearly favourable to stablecoins. The "GENIUS Act 2025" (Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act), a bipartisan effort, illustrates this desire by creating a legislative framework to ensure that reserves are invested exclusively in U.S. bonds.
This approach has also been publicly confirmed by both government figures and private players, as evidenced by recent statements from Scott Bessent - US Treasury Secretary - or Bank of America and Fidelity to name but a few.
This consensus across the Atlantic should question our European priorities and invite us to put a certain pragmatism back at the centre of our thinking.
European strategy: focus on MNBCs and strict regulation
In Europe, the MiCA regulatory framework, which began to come into force in July 2024, provides a framework for stablecoins (definition, status for issuers, obligations on functionality, etc.). This framework, while necessary to establish clear rules of the game, currently appears too restrictive, creating significant barriers for issuers. The main obstacles include collateral requirements, the ECB's right of veto, and the prohibition on redistributing returns generated by collateral to retail or institutional customers.
In parallel, the Eurosystem is focusing on the development of the digital euro, for which the functional and technical framework has yet to be defined, as has the need addressed.
A recent ECB study also highlights the low level of interest among respondents in the digital euro, without addressing legitimate concerns about the balance between public freedoms and control of financial flows.
Concerns reinforced by the Chinese example, where the digital yuan is part of a logic of control. A dynamic that is the opposite of that of the United States, which has announced that it will pause work on Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), with a presidential decree dated 23 January 2025. In particular, the text cites threats to financial stability, privacy and national sovereignty.
An act that once again illustrates two opposing visions: on the one hand, support for private companies in the stablecoins initiative, whose ambitions are on a global scale; on the other, a conservative approach marked by MNBC projects led by public players.
Finally, current payment infrastructures - Wero, instant transfers - as well as the existence of alternatives such as stablecoins, bitcoin and other crypto-assets, are already providing operational responses in terms of payment. Among these alternatives, stablecoins are emerging as the tokenised asset closest to fiat currency (read The Big Whale report) and whose adoption and use cases are developing at high speed.
Stablecoins: adoption outpacing the crypto ecosystem
The stablecoin market will reach $235 billion by March 2025, representing 100% growth in one year. They now represent 1% of the traditional M2 monetary aggregate, but in tokenised form. With 99.8% denominated in dollars, only 300 million euros are in circulation in the form of stablecoins in euros. Tether, the leading issuer of stablecoins in dollars, meanwhile, became the 7ᵉ largest buyer of US debt in 2024.
First used primarily for crypto-asset trading, stablecoins are now being deployed in other, more traditional financial use cases, such as:
👉 Cross-border payments such as remittances, accounting for $2,300 billion of the 11,000 billion exchanged in stablecoins in 2023, for example.
👉 Transactions linked to tokenised assets (money market funds, bonds, equities, etc.), for example Blackrock's BUIDL or the funds offered by Spiko in Europe that can be used as collateral for financial transactions
👉 The role of the "offshore dollar" in economies where the local currency is depreciating sharply and the bank penetration rate is low. For example, in Turkey, whose currency depreciated by around 40% in 2023, stablecoin purchases represented 4.3% of GDP between April 2023 and March 2024, or around $38 billion.
Call to action: technological and monetary sovereignty
In an increasingly tokenised financial world, the interest and potential of stablecoins are undeniable, particularly with a view to a union of capital markets. In this context, they could thus be a key tool for:
👉 Facilitating the financing of European companies - from defence to strategic industries - and thus strengthening their competitiveness and fostering innovation,
👉 Broadening the investment opportunities of retail savers,
👉 Strengthening the role of the euro as an international investment currency.
Beyond a technological issue, it is a real monetary battle that is at stake. An issue that is all the more important in an economic and geopolitical context marked by almost historic trade wars (customs duties, etc.). Europe must therefore ensure that the euro remains a key currency for international trade, on a par with the dollar, and this must also involve the alternative payment systems and infrastructures of tomorrow, of which stablecoins are a part.
After pioneering and beneficial experiments, it is time to scale up and accelerate the development of a French and/or European response to the development of dollar stablecoins.
To achieve this, it is urgent to mobilise the institutional and financial players to get to grips with the subject and propose concrete actions such as:
👉 Creating a national or European banking consortium (via an EME) and a local stablecoin,
👉 Initiating new discussions with European regulators to remove certain regulatory obstacles specific to MiCA and EMTs, or even modify the current framework and make it more attractive for both users and issuers,
👉 Promoting stablecoins as a settlement asset for tokenised assets, which must above all involve raising awareness among public players of the monetary and technological stakes of these new assets.
Europe must act quickly if it is not to fall behind the United States in this race for financial innovation.
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