Lagarde Blocks Euro Stablecoin Push, Calls $300B Market a Stability Risk for ECB Policy – Bitcoin News

Lagarde Warns European Banks That Euro Stablecoins Could Narrow ECB Rate Channel

Lagarde delivered her remarks at the Banco de España Latam Economic Forum in Roda de Bará, Spain. The speech, titled “ Stablecoins and the future of money: separating functions from instruments,” came as the global stablecoin market has grown from under $10 billion six years ago to more than $300 billion today.

“The case for promoting euro-denominated stablecoins is far weaker than it appears,” Lagarde remarked.

The market remains heavily dollar-dominated, with nearly 98% of stablecoins pegged to the U.S. dollar. Tether and Circle control a massive share of that market. The U.S. GENIUS Act, currently advancing through Congress, explicitly frames stablecoin expansion as a tool to cement the dollar’s global dominance and sustain demand for U.S. Treasuries.

Lagarde acknowledged that euro stablecoins operating under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR), which took effect in 2024, could generate additional demand for euro-area safe assets, compress sovereign yields, and extend the euro’s international reach. She did not dismiss those potential gains outright.

But she argued that two risks make the trade-off unfavorable. The first is financial stability. Stablecoins are private liabilities whose backing can come under sudden pressure during periods of stress. She highlighted that when Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapsed in March 2023, Circle disclosed that $3.3 billion of USDC’s reserves were held there. During that window, Lagarde said, USDC briefly traded at $0.877, more than 12 cents below its $1 peg.

“These trade-offs outweigh the short-term gains in financing conditions and international reach that euro-denominated stablecoins might provide,” Lagarde stated during her speech.

The second concern is monetary policy transmission, she explained. In the euro area, banks remain the primary channel through which ECB interest rate decisions reach firms and households. If retail deposits migrate into non-bank stablecoins and return to banks as more expensive wholesale funding, that channel narrows. ECB research published in March 2026 (Working Paper No. 3199) found that large-scale deposit substitution would weaken bank lending and monetary policy pass-through, an effect the paper noted is more pronounced in bank-heavy economies like Europe than in the U.S.

Lagarde’s position puts her at odds with Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel, also an ECB Governing Council member. In a Feb. 16, 2026, keynote at the New Year’s Reception of AmCham Germany, Nagel expressed support for the instruments. “I also see merit in euro-denominated stablecoins, as they can be used for cross-border payments by individuals and firms at low cost,” Nagel explained.

The divergence reflects a broader internal debate within the Eurosystem over how to respond to dollar stablecoin dominance and the risk of what Lagarde called “digital dollarisation.”

Rather than match U.S. stablecoin policy, Lagarde pointed to the Eurosystem’s own infrastructure plans. The Pontes project, launching in September 2026, will link distributed ledger platforms to TARGET, the ECB’s existing settlement system, allowing DLT-based transactions to settle in central bank money. The Appia roadmap, published in March 2026, sets a path to a fully interoperable European tokenized financial ecosystem by 2028.

“Our task is not to replicate instruments developed elsewhere, but to build the foundations and the infrastructure that serve our own objectives, so that we can harness the benefits of innovation without importing the fragilities,” Lagarde said.

European banks and payment firms that have already begun preparing regulated euro stablecoin products under MiCAR may now face added scrutiny as the ECB signals it prefers central bank-anchored solutions over private alternatives.