Europe risks losing control of its financial future to the US dollar unless it brings the euro on the blockchain track, according to Jan-Oliver Sell, CEO of bank-backed stablecoin project Qivalis.
The warning reflects growing concern among European banks and policymakers that the next phase of global finance, increasingly built on blockchain infrastructure, will be dominated overwhelmingly by dollar-pegged stablecoins, such as Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC.
“If we don’t have an on-chain euro with significant liquidity, then the only alternative is the US dollar,” Sell told CoinDesk. “This represents a real risk for Europe’s financial and digital sovereignty.”
Stablecoins are no longer just cryptocurrencies. They are now at the heart of the world’s financial systems with a market capitalization of around $314 billion currently, but it could reach between $800 billion and $1.15 trillion over the next five years, according to a recent calculation by Jeffries.
In traditional finance, the euro accounts for about 20 to 25 percent of global activity, making it the world’s second-largest reserve currency, Sell said. Surchain, however, its presence is almost non-existent.
“In the blockchain space, the euro represents around 0.2% of transactions,” Sell said. “It’s a huge disconnect.”
Top 12 EU banks vie for stablecoin dominance
Qivalis, backed by a consortium of 12 major European banks including ING, UniCredit and BBVA, is attempting to bridge this gap by issuing a MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin.
The project aims to launch as soon as regulatory approval is obtained, with Sell designating the second half of the year as a target, depending on licensing deadlines with the Dutch central bank.
Sell said the consortium aims to create the “default” euro-denominated token for global crypto markets, creating a European alternative to the dominant dollar stablecoins.
“We want to be the leading issuer of euro stablecoins globally,” he said. At its core, Qivalis is positioned as infrastructure rather than a simple token. “We are building the interface between blockchain and the euro,” Sell said. “It needs to be available wherever the use cases are.”
Qivalis is designed to solve a key problem that has held back euro stablecoins until now: fragmentation.
“A few banks trying to issue their own coins only fragments the space further,” Sell said. “Bringing institutions together creates the distribution and liquidity needed to make them usable.”
It’s not the ECB’s digital euro
The project comes as the European Central Bank (ECB) continues work on a digital euro that it aims to launch no earlier than 2029, but Sell said the two efforts are fundamentally different.
ECB President Christine Lagarde recently said the bank had finalized its share of the central bank’s digital euro and it was now up to political institutions to act. The project, which aims to create a public digital payment method, is currently being examined by the European Council and the European Parliament.
Qivalis will issue a private stablecoin regulated by MiCA, while ECB projects rely on centralized infrastructure.
“We don’t view this as competition,” Sell said. “It’s an improvement on the same financial stack.”
He described a “money stack” in which central bank money relies on centralized systems, while blockchain-based use cases, such as cross-border payments and on-chain settlement, require a Euro-native asset on public networks.
“Right now, if you want to operate on-chain, you are effectively forced to go with the dollar,” he said.
A race against dollar domination
The urgency of the project relates to the speed with which financial activity is moving towards blockchain-based systems – from crypto trading to global payments and decentralized finance.
Qivalis is betting that a regulated, bank-backed approach can compete with legacy dollar stablecoins by creating liquidity and integrating with exchanges, custodians and DeFi platforms.
“We’re looking to build this whole ecosystem around the on-chain euro,” Sell said.
Part of the challenge is not just issuing the token, but creating demand in markets where dollar stablecoins are already deeply entrenched.
Sell highlighted currency risk as one reason euro-denominated alternatives could gain traction.
“If you are a European user earning a return in dollars, you are also exposed to foreign exchange risk,” he said, noting that fluctuations in exchange rates can offset returns.
A question of financial sovereignty
As financial activity moves toward blockchain, the absence of a widely adopted euro stablecoin could leave Europe structurally dependent on a dollar-based infrastructure.
“One of the risks is that as activity moves up the chain, if there is no usable euro, then everything happens in dollars,” he said.
“We seek to build the cornerstone of European digital autonomy. If we fail to do this, we will face dollarization.”
The aim, he added, is not to replace the dollar outright, but to ensure that the euro remains competitive in a rapidly changing financial system.
“It’s also about returning the euro to its place as the world’s second reserve currency in this area,” Sell said. “It’s about putting the financial future in our hands, as Europeans.”
