Epilogue: Europe facing the U.S. digital challenge – between restrictive regulation and strategic urgency
The previous analysis makes it clear that the United States, under Donald Trump's economic vision and the legal framework of the GENIUS Act, has taken the lead in a profound reconfiguration of the global financial system, where stablecoins backed by U.S. public debt can become the new dominant channels of international liquidity.
Europe, on the contrary, faces this scenario with a position of institutional, technological, and strategic fragility.
1. Europe: caught between regulatory prudence and geopolitical paralysis
The MiCA Law (Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation), although it represents a pioneering effort by the EU to establish a common legal framework for digital assets, suffers from an excessively conservative and technical approach, which:
It disincentivizes innovation in token issuance and stablecoins by imposing regulatory and capital requirements that can only be assumed by large traditional financial entities.
Prohibits or strongly restricts the issuance of algorithmic stablecoins or those backed by non-euro assets, limiting the competitiveness of European issuers against U.S. rivals that operate with greater flexibility.
It still does not resolve the gap regarding the tokenization of traditional financial assets (stocks, bonds, commodities), which slows down the creation of attractive digital secondary markets for institutional investors.
Meanwhile, the GENIUS Act allows for a hybrid system where private actors issue stablecoins backed by public debt, attracting international savings and digitalizing the circulation of the dollar without direct intervention from the Treasury. This regulatory agility positions the U.S. as the dominant issuer of sovereign digital assets, even beyond its borders.
2. The European paradox: legal stability without offensive capability
Europe has prioritized consumer protection, financial stability, and institutional harmonization, but has not designed a global digital economic offensive. This translates into:
Growing dependence on foreign digital currencies, especially those backed by dollars.
Flight of venture capital and crypto innovation towards more competitive jurisdictions, such as the U.S., Switzerland, or even Asian regions.
Loss of monetary and commercial influence in strategic areas such as Africa, Latin America, or Eastern Europe, where U.S. stablecoins are already used as digital value reserves.
The absence of an interoperable, scalable, and attractive European stablecoin for international markets amounts to a tacit renunciation of digital monetary sovereignty.
3. How should Europe reformulate its strategy?
To compete on equal footing with the United States and mitigate the impact of the GENIUS Act, Europe needs an audacious strategy with a geoeconomic vision. This involves:
a) Reform MiCA with pro-market criteria:
Reduce entry barriers for issuers of euro-backed stablecoins, allowing for greater diversity of supervised issuers.
Allow the free and legal tokenization of European financial assets, under the supervision of ESMA (European Securities Authority), fostering digital secondary markets.
b) Accelerate the creation of a digital euro or mixed European stablecoin, managed by private entities under the control of the ECB.
This currency should compete directly with dollar stablecoins, offering legal backing, immediate convertibility, and low international transaction costs.
The ECB must act as a facilitator and not as the sole issuer, allowing for innovation under license and oversight.
c) Align fiscal, monetary, and technological policy:
Integrate the Digital Reindustrialization Plan with the financial strategy.
Create regulatory testing zones (sandboxes) at the eurozone level, with tax incentives for tokenization projects and euro-backed stablecoins.
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Closing: Europe as an actor or a spectator?
If Europe does not react decisively and pragmatically, it will be reduced to a regulated but subordinate jurisdiction, whose traditional monetary system will be eclipsed by U.S. stablecoins.
The GENIUS Act not only represents a financial innovation but also a vector of global power, combining monetary digitalization, debt issuance, and political leadership.
Europe has the capacity to compete, but to do so it must break free from bureaucratic inertia and adopt an offensive vision that articulates technological, monetary, and fiscal sovereignty in the upcoming new digital financial order.