After the entry into force of the US “Genius Act,” which clearly regulates the stablecoin market and strengthens the US dollar, the EU is accelerating its plans for the digital euro.
The US “Genius Act,” a comprehensive law regulating stablecoins, has alarmed the EU: clear rules and technological progress could further expand the dollar’s dominance in digital payments. To safeguard the euro’s competitiveness, the ECB is therefore speeding up the launch of the digital euro.
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EU responds to regulatory pressure from the US
So far, the digital euro had been planned on private infrastructure modeled after China’s CBDC - but with EU-specific technology. Now, however, the ECB is seriously considering, according to the Financial Times, whether public blockchains like Ethereum or Solana could be a better foundation to ensure interoperability and global reach. According to several EU representatives, this discussion marks a turning point in project planning.
Potential and challenges of the new direction
A digital euro on public blockchains would make access easier and give it genuine global character - for example, by enabling its use on decentralized platforms or programmable integration into smart contracts. This transparency could strengthen trust but also entails risks such as data protection concerns and technical complexity in implementation. The ECB, however, emphasizes the need to carefully balance centralized control with open technology to combine the advantages of both approaches.
As political debate gathers pace, pressure is also mounting from the private sector. European banks and payment providers are calling for clear regulatory frameworks to remain competitive with US corporations and Asian players. A digital euro on globally adopted chains could become the decisive lever.
Public chains in the CBDC stress test
If the ECB were to actually launch the digital euro on public networks such as Ethereum or Solana, this would grant these platforms enormous strategic significance. Ethereum could then grow into the role of state-level base infrastructure - but the technical limits are obvious: the Ethereum mainnet currently processes only about 15 transactions per second - far from the scale a CBDC would need in mass payments. While Layer-2 solutions with higher capacity exist, adopting them would make the ECB dependent on external rollup operators.
Solana, in principle, could deliver the required transaction speed. Yet the crucial question remains: would the ECB really be willing to hand over control of its currency to a public protocol - with open governance and beyond direct state oversight?
Against this backdrop, it seems plausible that the debate around Ethereum and Solana is primarily a political signal. A more likely outcome would be a hybrid approach that leverages elements of public chains for interoperability while at the same time securing centralized control.
