Stablecoins used to live in a legal gray zone. That is changing quickly on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States, President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act on July 18, 2025, creating the country’s first federal framework for payment stablecoins. The law requires full reserve backing with liquid assets such as U.S. dollars or short-term Treasuries and calls for monthly public disclosure of reserves. It also gives banks a route into the business through subsidiaries, and the rule-writing phase is now moving ahead: the FDIC approved a proposal on application procedures in December 2025, and the OCC issued a proposed implementing rule on February 25, 2026. (whitehouse.gov)
Europe has chosen a stricter and more defensive model. Under MiCA, the stablecoin sections started to apply on June 30, 2024, before the rest of the regulation took effect on December 30, 2024. EU rules let holders redeem at par, ban interest on e-money tokens, and require a substantial share of reserves to be kept in bank deposits. The ECB has warned that if payment money moves from bank deposits into stablecoins, bank funding and the transmission of monetary policy could weaken. And the rules are still tightening: on February 12, 2026, the European Banking Authority said the temporary transition in the overlap between MiCA and PSD2 ends on March 2, 2026, pushing authorities to scrutinize firms that handle e-money tokens more closely. (eur-lex.europa.eu)
So, can banks still protect their role as the main actors in money? The answer seems to be yes, but only if they adapt fast. America is trying to bring stablecoins inside the regulated financial system. Europe is trying to stop them from becoming a high-yield substitute for bank deposits. At the same time, banks are fighting back by entering the field themselves: Qivalis, a consortium backed by major European banks, says it plans to launch a MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin in the second half of 2026 under Dutch supervision. The deeper issue is not crypto versus banks. It is who will issue digital money that people actually use every day. For now, regulators in both the U.S. and Europe are trying to make sure the answer is still: institutions tied to the state’s currency, not free-floating private empires. (ecb.europa.eu)










