Who’s afraid of stablecoins?

LUXEMBOURG – U.S. President Donald Trump’s embrace of so-called stablecoins as a means of projecting America’s financial power and preserving the dollar’s global dominance has spurred calls for a “strategic response” by the European Union. If Europe does not stake out its position in this techno-financial revolution, the argument goes, its monetary sovereignty and financial stability will deteriorate. But the warnings are as unwarranted as they are ominous. The main catalyst of Europe’s stablecoin anxiety is the Trump administration’s Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, which aims to promote dollar-backed stablecoins by implementing a comprehensive regulatory framework for them. But the legislation’s actual provisions closely resemble those in the EU’s 2023 Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) Regulation, which was passed as a precaution, before stablecoins had much financial significance. So, from a regulatory perspective, the United States has not pulled ahead of Europe. But, even if it had, stablecoins are poorly suited to

Who’s afraid of stablecoins?