Torbjørn Bull Jenssen, CEO of K33, does not have much faith in a Euro stablecoin, which nine European banks launched on Thursday. “A euro token built by a committee, limited by MiCA, will struggle to gain a foothold against already successful solutions with more than a decade of experience and grounding,” Bull Jenssen writes. “Banks should not try to make their own money. They should instead integrate the stablecoins that already work and offer genuine Bitcoin and crypto services such as custody, settlement and credit backed by solid collateral,” he writes in this blog post.
Torbjørn is CEO of the Norwegian crypto broker and K33 AB, listed on Nasdaq First North. Previously he worked in Menon Economics, consulting entities like the Norwegian Central Bank, the Ministry of Finance and the NFSA on digital assets and blockchain. Torbjørn has an MSc in Economics and Econometrics from the University of Oslo with a master's thesis on Bitcoin.
Nine European banks are teaming up to launch a euro stablecoin. It is the 2025 remake of “blockchain, not Bitcoin.” We have seen this film before. R3’s grand banking consortium faded. Facebook’s Libra, later rebranded as Diem, was sold off and shuttered. Gall’s Law still applies: complex systems that work evolve from simple systems that work. Committees do not mint trust.
Stablecoins will become huge. But they will not be built by committee. Consumers want reliability and freedom, not a bank-crafted token designed by nine legal departments. The stablecoins that dominate today, dollar denominated and market tested, succeeded because they emerged organically and iteratively, not by decree.
The motivation is clear. European banks face pressure from two sides. The European Central Bank is moving ahead with a digital euro. At the same time USD stablecoins are the backbone of global crypto liquidity and on-chain commerce. A consortium issued euro stablecoin is an attempt to fend off both threats and to slow the outflow of deposits.
Deposits matter because they are cheap funding. If customers shift savings into CBDC euros or into dollar stablecoins, banks lose a core source of financing. Rather than compete for deposits on price and service, banks prefer to shape the regulatory field to their advantage.
The EU’s MiCA regulation gives them that field. MiCA requires that stablecoin issuers hold a large share of their reserves as deposits with commercial banks. For “significant” tokens the quota is at least 60 percent. For others it is at least 30 percent. This ties a stablecoin’s solvency to the very institutions it should diversify away from and exposes holders to the same bank-run dynamics crypto was meant to escape.
Tether, the largest global issuer, has already chosen to stay outside the MiCA regime because the mandated deposit structure creates intolerable counterparty risk. A token that must park most reserves inside European banks inherits the fragility of those banks. MiCA was supposed to enable stablecoins. Instead it discourages credible issuers and leaves Europe with a thinner market.
This outcome was not an accident. European banks lobbied for these provisions. They understood that forcing issuers to keep reserves with them would lock in deposits and preserve their funding base. It is good for bank balance sheets but bad for users and for competition.
Adam Smith captured this centuries ago: “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” A European bank-consortium stablecoin is that quote in action.
Banks should not try to build their own money. They should integrate the stablecoins that already work and offer real Bitcoin and crypto services such as custody, settlement, and credit backed by sound collateral. That is where demand is and where lasting value lies. Customers want assets with global liquidity and trustless settlement, not another slow, closed, banking club.
As a society we should welcome competition for deposits. If deposits can leave easily for better instruments, banks must offer better terms and service. Regulation should not be used to trap funds inside incumbent institutions.
The ECB’s digital euro will remain a political project with narrow use cases. Dollar stablecoins will keep expanding as the default on-chain payment medium. A committee built euro token, constrained by MiCA, will struggle to gain traction against already successful solutions with more than a decade of experience and traction.
Stablecoins will indeed reshape global finance, but not through a European banking cartel. The next generation of money will grow the way all resilient systems do: from simple working parts that users choose freely. Europe should embrace that competition, not try to legislate it away. Banks should listen to their users, adapt, and internalize how little they really know about what they imagine they can design, as advised by Fredrich Hayek.
The alternative is to discover that against the forces of evolution and innovation, no one is too big to fail.
Kaupr's blog column is open for posts. Send your article or idea to morten@kaupr.io.