ECB President Christine Lagarde questioned the need for European stablecoins to protect monetary sovereignty. Speaking at an economic forum in Spain, she stated that the risks associated with such assets outweigh their potential benefits.
Lagarde identified two main threats.
- Financial instability. Stablecoins are private obligations. She cited the incident with USDC in 2023, when the asset lost its dollar peg due to issues at Silicon Valley Bank.
- Impact on the banking system. A mass shift of depositors into stablecoins would weaken banks' ability to lend to the economy and complicate inflation control.
According to Lagarde, stablecoins are popular mainly because they are more convenient than traditional interbank transfers. She emphasized that Europe does not need to replicate the American model.
Instead of private stablecoins, the ECB is focusing on state infrastructure:
- Pontes project: will enable blockchain transactions directly in central bank money;
- Appia roadmap: aims to create a unified European ecosystem for tokenized assets by 2028.
Lagarde stressed that integrating capital markets and developing a digital euro would yield greater benefits than trying to catch up with the U.S. in issuing private tokens. She concluded that having a state "anchor" in the form of a central bank digital currency would render the use of foreign stablecoins in Europe pointless.
In April, the Bank for International Settlements warned that many dollar stablecoins function more as investment instruments than as means of payment.
Later, a consortium of 12 European banks announced the launch of a euro stablecoin.