ECB wants to know who owns stablecoins in the Eurozone

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https://cryptoast.fr/bce-veut-savoir-qui-detient-stablecoins-dans-zone-euro/

While its current president Christine Lagarde has just announced her resignation at the end of October, effective in February 2027, the European Central Bank (ECB) continues to question the role and impact that stablecoins could have on financial stability in the euro zone.

Indeed, this body has just published a recent report in an attempt to determine who holds stablecoins within its jurisdiction, in particular due to the very significant expansion of this market and its growing interconnection with the financial sector.

The global stablecoin market has seen rapid growth since 2020, but it recently hit a plateau. At the same time, stablecoins are increasingly linked to the traditional financial sector, particularly through reserve asset holdings. They are primarily used for trading cryptoassets, although they could also serve as cross-border payment instruments.

The opportunity for the authors of this report to recall that even if “the market for stablecoins denominated in euros has progressed, it remains relatively modest”. To realize this, you just need to look for the green part of the graph above, supposed to correspond to the share of euro stablecoins authorized by the European regulatory framework MiCA, estimated according to the ECB at around 650 million euros (0.2%).

According to ECB estimates, “euro zone consumers are slowly increasing their direct exposure to crypto-assets” from a proportion of 9.8% in November 2024 to 13% in August 2025. And among the latter, 5% say they hold stablecoins, or more than a third of them.

The estimated distribution of stablecoin holdings, in terms of amounts invested, more generally concerns small amounts. However, almost 10% of stablecoin holders would have had assets of 10,000 euros or more in November, which demonstrates great diversity.

Unsurprisingly, the report highlights the dominance of stablecoins denominated in dollars, largely held by European consumers who prefer those with the highest market capitalization, such as USDT which comes first (17%) ahead of USDC (12%) and EURC denominated in euros (10%). Other stablecoins, denominated in euros or other currencies, together represent less than 9% of declared assets.

In addition, the data collected highlights more frequent use of stablecoins among respondents born in another EU country or outside the EU. A finding considered “compatible with the hypothesis that stablecoins would be used for cross-border payments or remittances”.

Faced with this observation, ECB experts believe that stablecoins still represent a negligible weight in the financial assets held by consumers, especially held with other crypto-assets (notably Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP). The immediate risks to financial stability and bank financing are therefore limited.

However, in the event of a significant increase in their adoption, the ECB identifies three future vulnerabilities that should not be overlooked:

Risks that the ECB considers to be all the more important to monitor due to “younger cohorts more inclined to crypto-assets arriving on these markets”. But there is no need to worry, because the MiCA regulatory framework “reduces many of these risks mentioned”.

To buy or exchange cryptos, including stablecoins, OKX presents itself as a MiCA approved platform, the framework referred to by the ECB.

Passionate about cryptocurrencies and the principle of decentralization for many years, I want to share this experience with as many people as possible. I also endeavor to decipher the issues associated with the evolution of this ecosystem within traditional finance.

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