The dollar problem nobody in Brussels wants to say out loud
Ninety nine percent. That is roughly the share of stablecoins in circulation today denominated in US dollars, according to the European Central Bank's own figures. The total stablecoin market sits around 300 billion dollars, and the euro's slice of it is a rounding error. Every time a European business settles a crypto trade, pays a supplier on-chain, or moves liquidity between exchanges, it is almost certainly doing so in a token pegged to a currency it does not use at home.
This was the backdrop for a conversation we found genuinely useful: Jan-Oliver Sell, CEO of Qivalis, speaking with our co-host Igor Tomych on Fintech Garden Podcast 175. Qivalis is building a euro stablecoin backed by a consortium of European banks, and the episode is worth your time for one reason in particular: Sell is honest about why this has not happened already, and why it might finally work now.
It was never a technology problem
The instinct, when a market gap this large exists, is to assume someone just has not built the right product yet. That is not what happened here. Euro-denominated tokens have existed for years. What was missing was institutional comfort, specifically from banks, to put their name and balance sheet behind one.
Sell makes a point on the episode that we think deserves more attention than it usually gets: liquidity, not technology, is the real constraint on a euro stablecoin reaching scale. A token is only as useful as the venues that will accept it, the market makers willing to quote it, and the corporates willing to hold it overnight instead of converting back to fiat. None of that arrives because the smart contract is well written. It arrives because enough serious institutions commit to using the thing at the same time.
That is also why a bank consortium model matters more than a single fintech trying to launch alone. One issuer asking the market to trust it is a sales pitch. Several regulated banks agreeing to back the same instrument is closer to infrastructure.
MiCA did the thing regulation rarely does: it created confidence
We spend a lot of time on this blog pointing out where EU rules slow projects down. MiCA, the Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation, is an interesting counterexample. Under its Title IV regime, issuers of e-money tokens need authorisation, must hold a reserve of assets that is segregated from their own balance sheet, held with proper custodians, and subject to redemption rights for holders at any time. The European Banking Authority has spent the past two years publishing the technical standards underneath that: reserve composition, liquidity management, own funds requirements, and a significant token category with extra supervision once a token crosses certain usage thresholds.
None of that is exciting reading. But it is precisely the kind of detail that let European banks say yes. A board approving participation in a new payment instrument needs to know what happens to the money backing it, who can audit the reserve, and what the redemption guarantee actually means in a stress scenario. Before MiCA, those answers varied project to project. After MiCA, they are written into law. Sell's framing on the podcast is that regulatory clarity, not permissiveness, is what unlocked bank involvement. We agree, and it is a useful corrective for anyone who assumes regulation and adoption always move in opposite directions.
The distinction that actually matters: EMT versus digital euro
One confusion worth clearing up, because we still see it in client conversations: a privately issued euro stablecoin under MiCA is not the same thing as the European Central Bank's digital euro project. The digital euro, if it launches, would be a central bank liability, retail facing, and designed to coexist with cash. A MiCA regulated e-money token like the one Qivalis is building is a private liability, issued by an authorised entity, backed one to one by reserve assets, and aimed initially at wholesale and institutional use cases rather than consumer wallets.
Both can exist at once. They solve different problems. Institutions choosing between a bank issued euro stablecoin and a dollar stablecoin for settlement do not need the digital euro to launch first. They need the MiCA regulated option to actually have depth and counterparties, which circles back to Sell's liquidity point.
What this means if you run treasury or compliance at a European fintech
A few practical takeaways for anyone reading this who is not in the stablecoin business but touches payments or treasury:
If your firm settles any volume in dollar stablecoins today for speed or cost reasons, it is worth tracking which euro denominated, MiCA authorised alternatives reach real liquidity over the next twelve to eighteen months. Settlement risk and FX exposure on dollar legs are easy to underweight until a volatile quarter makes them visible.
For compliance teams specifically, the EBA's Title IV requirements are a reasonable template for what good looks like even outside crypto: segregated reserves, defined custodians, explicit redemption rights, and a tiered supervision model based on scale. If you are building or reviewing any product that holds client funds, those four elements are a sound checklist regardless of whether crypto regulation technically applies to you.
Our honest read
We like this episode because Sell does not oversell the timeline. He does not claim euro stablecoins will flip the market share numbers next year, and he is upfront that bank backed does not automatically mean liquid. Ninety nine percent dollar dominance does not move because a consortium forms. It moves when enough transaction volume actually routes through the alternative, and that takes exchanges listing it, market makers quoting tight spreads, and corporates trusting it enough to hold a balance over a weekend.
What MiCA has done is remove the excuse. European banks can no longer say the rules are too vague to participate. Now the test is adoption, and that is a slower, less clean story to report on than a regulation passing. Worth watching the next few quarters rather than the headline.
Full conversation: Fintech Garden Podcast 175, with Jan-Oliver Sell of Qivalis and Igor Tomych.