MiCA makes euro stablecoin market safer but less competitive
Tech MiCA makes euro stablecoin market safer but less competitive A new report from industry group Blockchain for Europe said the European Unions Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulatory framework has made euro-denominated stablecoins safer but less competitive, leaving them trailing behind U.S. dollar–pegged tokens in digital payments and trading. The “Reforming MiCA for euro stablecoins” paper set out to examine how MiCA is shaping the future of euro‑denominated stablecoins. Based on its findings, it proposed a set of targeted, pragmatic reforms aimed at “ensuring MiCA supports a competitive, resilient and globally relevant euro stablecoin ecosystem,” while urging targeted reforms related to reserves and remuneration. Citing data from analytics platform DeFiLlama, the report showed that euro stablecoins account for less than 1% of global stablecoin volume, which is far below the level that the euros broader role in global markets would imply. To put this in context, the world share of international payments via SWIFT—the largest global messaging system for cross-border payments—has the euro at 37%, just behind the U.S. at 39%, according to MacroMicro data. The report attributed the disparity between the euros much larger role in global markets—when it comes to fiat currency payments compared to stablecoin volume—to certain design choices in MiCA that