A new euro-pegged stablecoin introduced in France has received negative feedback from several industry experts, but the general public is still waiting to get their hands on it.
On April 20, the Ethereum-based stablecoin known as EUR CoinVertible (EURCV) was introduced by the French bank Societe Generale-Forge (SGF). This cryptocurrency is exclusively accessible to qualified institutional customers after going through the bank’s Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) processes.
The introduction of the stablecoin came about as a response to the rising need for a new settlement asset to process transactions on the blockchain.
According to data from the Ethereum explorer Etherscan, 10 million EURCV tokens were mined three days ago. One digital wallet address controls all 10 million tickets in circulation.
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According to observers who analyzed the smart contract code for ERC-20, before a transaction can be completed, it must first be authorized by a centralized registrar (probably one controlled by the bank), as required by the smart contract.
An anonymous competent contract developer using the handle alephv. eth tweeted an explanation on April 20 mocking the coding prosses of the stablecoin.
I noticed something 100x funnier: THEY HAVE TO DO A BLOCKCHAIN TRANSACTION TO PROCESS YOUR APPROVALS.They coded it so they have to whitelist all users, process all user transfers, and even process your ERC20 approvals before they process your 'transferFrom' lmao https://t.co/AhGNK4HHC7 pic.twitter.com/0QEFXWISL8
— alephv.eth (@alpeh_v) April 20, 2023
In another piece, she even made fun of the law by describing it as a “radical commitment to inefficiency in the name of the regulation.”
In the meantime, NFT and DeFi entrepreneur Foobar sent a message to his more than 127,000 followers in which he called it “the worst code I’ve ever seen” and called the stablecoin a “laughing stock.”
France launched a stablecoin on Ethereum and it's the worst code I've ever seenEvery ERC20 single transfer has to be approved in a separate eth tx submitted by a centralized registrarWhat a laughingstock, is this your CBDC?https://t.co/hKkHiQTCyN pic.twitter.com/S6tRfh54wz
— foobar (@0xfoobar) April 20, 2023
Mason Versluis, a crypto researcher, tweeted that the code was “absolutely horrible” and advised the French bank to “stop trying to weasel” into crypto. Mason’s message was retweeted more than 2,000 times.
BREAKING: France launches stablecoin on #Ethereum, but every single transfer has to be approved in a separate ETH transaction submitted by a centralized registrar! 👀Absolutely horrible. Keep your centralized bullshit over there, stop trying to weasel it into crypto.News Via:… pic.twitter.com/mcg9fvUoSp
— MASON VERSLUIS 🏆🔮 (@MasonVersluis) April 20, 2023
Ryan Berckman, an investor in ether, presented a more objective analysis, even though many others contributed to the criticism. He indicated that many conventional financial companies, including SGF, would migrate into blockchain and digital assets in “baby steps.”
good catch. Looks like SmartCoin is not ERC-20 compliant because their transfer doesn't actually transfer the coins, it requests a transfer for approval in a later transaction. Obviously, non-compliant, non-composable, allowlist-style stables are going to be uncompetitive in the…
— Ryan Berckmans ryanb.eth🦇🔊 (@ryanberckmans) April 20, 2023
Berckman noted that SGF’s claim that it was the first bank to deploy an institutional stablecoin on a public blockchain could also be erroneous. Berckman was explaining why SGF might be wrong. He referred to the AUDN stablecoin issued on Ethereum in March by the National Australia Bank (NAB), which at the time claimed to be the second bank in the world to produce a stablecoin.
Berckman is “certain” that SGF won’t be the first bank to launch a stablecoin on a public network; nevertheless, he anticipates that more banks will follow suit in the coming months and states that he is “certain” that SGF won’t be the last bank to do so.
Read more: Societe Generale launches ethereum-based EUR stablecoin
