Euro Stablecoin: Built by Europeans for Europe, with Jan-Oliver Sell, Qivalis | FG Podcast 175

Jan-Oliver Sell, CEO of Qivalis, opens with the number that frames this entire episode: almost every stablecoin transaction today settles in US dollars, even though roughly 25% of global stablecoin activity is initiated from inside Europe. That mismatch, demand without a liquid euro to meet it, is what Qivalis was built to solve.

Digital euro and euro stablecoin are not the same thing

Jan-Oliver draws a clear line between two projects that get conflated. The ECB’s retail digital euro is a cash-like instrument for consumer use, and it won’t run on a blockchain. What Qivalis issues is an electronic money token, a euro-denominated stablecoin backed 1:1 by reserves held in treasury, designed specifically to let euro-based financial activity happen on chain.

That distinction is the same one we covered with Eesti Pank in Digital euro is not crypto. It is digital cash. For the public-money side of the stack, see our CBDC guide.

MiCA gave banks the confidence to actually get involved

Before MiCA, European banks had no regulatory clarity on what a token legally was or what they could do with one. Jan-Oliver credits that framework directly with unlocking the institutional participation behind Qivalis: the project launched with 12 founding member banks and has since grown to 37, spread across Europe.

Liquidity, not technology, is the real constraint

Jan-Oliver is direct that the technical side of issuing a stablecoin isn’t the hard part. The hard part is depth: without enough euro liquidity on chain, a corporate trying to move money at scale runs into slippage and can’t reliably source the euro they need. Building that liquidity, and the ecosystem of lending, trading, and settlement around it, is what Qivalis sees as its actual job.

That is the same operational layer that shows up in stablecoin banking: issuance is not the product if treasury cannot move size.

Why Jan-Oliver worries about dollarization

Talking to 37 banks about their own blockchain roadmaps, Jan-Oliver sees a real risk forming: if European banks move financial processes on chain but keep settling in US dollar stablecoins by default, euro-denominated assets effectively convert into US government treasuries, and capital starts flowing out of Europe’s own financial system. A euro stablecoin backed by European banks keeps those funds inside Europe instead.