Gourav-S

How a major banking consortium plans to reshape digital finance with a regulated euro-pegged stablecoin

In a significant shift for digital finance, a consortium of 12 major European banks has joined forces to build a regulated euro-pegged stablecoin designed to rival the dominance of U.S. dollar-denominated digital money. This initiative — organized through a Netherlands-based joint venture called Qivalis — aims to create a trusted, compliant, and efficient euro digital asset that supports faster cross-border payments and a more competitive European payment infrastructure.

Europe’s stablecoin efforts enjoy strong regulatory backing under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework, which provides clear rules for digital asset issuance and consumer protection. By leveraging this framework and the credibility of established banking institutions, the project hopes to deliver a safe, transparent alternative to dollar-linked stablecoins like USDT and USDC — which today dominate more than 99 % of the global stablecoin market.

🏦 What Is Qivalis and Who Is Involved?

Qivalis is a newly formed joint venture backed by leading European banks — each bringing expertise, scale, and regulatory credibility to the project. The current roster includes:

BBVA (Spanish multinational)
BNP Paribas (France)
CaixaBank (Spain)
ING (Netherlands)
UniCredit (Italy)
Banca Sella (Italy)
SEB (Sweden)
DekaBank (Germany)
DAZ BANK (Germany)
KBC (Belgium)
Raiffeisen Bank International (Austria)
Danske Bank (Denmark)

This assembling of established financial leaders signals a rare level of industry cooperation — especially in blockchain initiatives, which are often pursued individually by fintech firms rather than traditional institutions.

Mission & Timeline — A Stablecoin With Purpose

The consortium’s stated goal is to build a MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin that is fully backed 1:1 with euro reserves and issued under the supervision of regulators. The stablecoin is expected to be launched in the second half of 2026, pending regulatory approval from the Dutch Central Bank as an Electronic Money Institution (EMI).

This regulatory step is critical: instead of launching in an unregulated or semi-regulated context, Qivalis is navigating the EU framework that emphasizes consumer protections, transparency, and institutional oversight. That approach could encourage broader adoption among businesses and consumers wary of compliance risks.

Why Europe Is Taking This Step

Today’s stablecoin landscape is overwhelmingly dominated by U.S. dollar-pegged assets — with tokens like USDT and USDC anchoring most digital payments and liquidity in crypto markets. That dominance extends beyond trading, influencing international remittances, decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, and cross-border commerce.

However, dollar dominance in stablecoins creates:

Geopolitical reliance on U.S. financial infrastructure,
Exposure to U.S. regulatory shifts, and
Limited euro-based digital liquidity across global markets.

The Qivalis euro stablecoin aims to counter these pressures by providing a European digital money alternative that reflects the bloc’s economic scale and regulatory expectations — particularly for institutional and enterprise use cases.

How the Euro Stablecoin Will Work

While the token has yet to be issued, the project’s foundational principles are clear from official sources and regulatory guidelines on MiCA:

🪙 Fully Backed & Regulated

The token will be pegged 1:1 to the euro and supported by reserve assets held in secure, regulated accounts. This ensures stability and trust — essential for payments and settlement use cases.

📜 MiCA-Compliant Design

MiCA is a comprehensive EU framework for digital assets that protects investors and ensures stablecoin issuers maintain prudent financial practices. Being MiCA-compliant means this euro stablecoin could be trusted by banks, enterprises, and consumers alike.

⚡ Blockchain-Powered Payments

Unlike traditional interbank systems, blockchain enables instant settlement, programmable transactions, and 24/7 payment rails across borders — advantages that are core to the use cases being targeted by the consortium.

📈 Integration With TradFi and Tokenized Assets

Banks can integrate the stablecoin into legacy systems for payments, lending, settlements, and tokenized assets — bridging traditional finance with digital rails.

Potential Benefits for Europe and Beyond

⚡ Faster Payments

European corporates could settle cross-border invoices and remittances in real time, reducing reliance on slow correspondent banking networks.

💸 Lower Costs

By enabling blockchain settlement and reducing intermediaries, the stablecoin could lower transaction and settlement fees — a big advantage for consumers and businesses alike.

🌐 Financial Autonomy

A euro-linked stablecoin helps Europe assert monetary presence in digital finance, reducing the eurozone’s dependency on U.S. dollar digital money.

❓ Challenges Ahead

Despite the initiative’s strong backing, it still faces hurdles:

🧾 Regulatory Approval

Obtaining an EMI license from the Dutch Central Bank is non-trivial and requires rigorous compliance, operational readiness, and risk frameworks.

💱 Market Adoption

Convincing businesses, exchanges, wallets, and consumers to adopt a euro stablecoin — especially when US dollar options dominate liquidity — will take time and ecosystem support.

🪪 User Experience

For mainstream usage, interfaces and integrations must be seamless — including crypto-fiat on/off ramps and wallet usability for non-technical users.

Final Thought — A New Chapter in Digital Money

The formation of a 12-bank consortium to launch a regulatory-compliant euro stablecoin marks a strategic turning point in global digital finance. It blends traditional banking trust with blockchain innovation and regulatory clarity, positioning Europe to offer a credible on-chain euro-based payment system on par with entrenched dollar stablecoin markets.

If successful, this initiative could reshape how payments, settlements, and cross-border commerce work — not just within Europe, but globally — by providing a trusted, regulated, and efficient digital euro.

@Plasma
$XPL
#Plasma

Global money movement — whether it’s sending money home to family, paying international invoices, or settling accounts for a global business — has historically been expensive, slow, and siloed. Traditional banking systems often take days to complete cross-border transfers and charge high fees that eat into the value of every transaction. But with the rise of blockchain networks and stablecoins, these bottlenecks are finally being addressed.

One of the most interesting infrastructure projects in this space is Plasma, a Layer 1 blockchain purpose-built for stablecoin payments, with features specifically designed to improve cross-border and international transfers at scale. In this article, we’ll explore how Plasma enables better cross-border payments and remittances, why this matters, and what real users and businesses can benefit from these innovations.

What Is Plasma and Why It Matters for Payments

According to its official documentation, Plasma is a high-performance, EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain designed from the ground up for global stablecoin payments and low-cost value movement. Rather than being a general-purpose smart contract chain like many others, Plasma’s architecture prioritizes fast, cheap, and scalable stablecoin transfers.

Here are some core features that set Plasma apart:
✔ Zero-fee USD₮ transfers — Plasma’s built-in paymaster system can sponsor gas for basic stablecoin transfers, eliminating direct transaction costs for end users.
✔ Custom gas token support — Users can pay fees in stablecoins like USD₮ or even BTC, removing barriers caused by needing native tokens for gas.
✔ High throughput and instant finality — Plasma’s consensus is designed to finalize transactions in sub-seconds and handle thousands of transactions per second, making it practical for high-frequency global transfers.
✔ EVM compatibility and smart contract support — Developers can build familiar payment logic and automation tools for cross-border use cases.

These features combine to make stablecoin payments on Plasma faster, more predictable, and much cheaper than many legacy systems — a key for remittances and international commerce.

The Traditional Problem With Cross-Border Payments

Moving money across borders in the traditional financial system is often riddled with inefficiencies:

Slow Settlement

Bank wires and correspondent banking systems can take 2–5 business days or more to complete an international payment because of intermediary banks, time zone differences, and manual processes.

High Costs

Many remittance services charge high fees — sometimes 5% or more of the amount sent — especially for smaller transfers where fixed fees apply regardless of transaction size.

Opaque Costs and Intermediaries

Traditional systems involve multiple banks and intermediaries that each take a cut, often without clear breakdowns for senders and recipients.

Banking Access Barriers

Many people in emerging markets do not have access to affordable banking services, making traditional remittance channels inaccessible or prohibitively expensive.

These limitations create real economic pain points — especially for families depending on remittances for everyday expenses or businesses paying international suppliers.

How Plasma Transforms Cross-Border Payments

Plasma addresses these problems directly by leveraging stablecoin rails optimized for global transfers. Here’s how:

1. Near-Instant Settlement

One of Plasma’s technical boons is its fast block times and consensus design, which enables close to instant settlement of transactions. Rather than waiting days for funds to move, stablecoin payments on Plasma can clear in seconds or minutes, giving both senders and recipients faster access to funds.

For individuals sending remittances, that speed can make a real difference in emergencies — for example, helping cover a medical bill or urgent household expenses without delay.

2. Lower Costs, Higher Value Delivered

By eliminating many intermediaries and leveraging on-chain settlement, Plasma dramatically reduces costs. The zero-fee USD₮ transfer feature means that some transfers — especially smaller ones — can happen with no direct transaction fees at all, something traditional financial providers simply cannot match.

Even when custom gas tokens are used, pricing remains predictable and far lower than typical bank or remittance service fees. This is especially true for high-volume or smaller transfers where legacy systems charge flat fees that eat into the value being sent.

3. Transparency and Traceability

Every payment on a blockchain like Plasma is recorded publicly and immutably. This gives both senders and businesses real-time visibility into transfer status and reduces disputes or reconciliation delays. In contrast, banking systems rely on opaque interbank messages and delayed confirmations.

4. Enhanced Accessibility and Inclusion

Because Plasma is permissionless and built for stablecoins, anyone with an internet connection can transact — no need for traditional bank accounts or financial intermediaries. This is particularly valuable for unbanked or underbanked populations in regions like Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where access to traditional remittances is limited.

Real-World Use Cases

Let’s look at practical scenarios where Plasma’s features make a measurable difference:

👪 Cross-Border Remittances

A worker in one country sends USD₮ stablecoins to a family member abroad. On Plasma, the transfer settles in seconds, costs minimal or no fee, and can be immediately converted to local currency through compliant on/off ramps. Over time this can save families thousands in fees compared to traditional remittance services.

Business Payments and Supplier Settlements

A small business with suppliers in multiple countries can use Plasma to settle invoices instantly and at low cost, improving cash flow and reducing the administrative burden of bank transfers. Instead of waiting days and paying high costs, payments happen onchain and can be tracked transparently.

Global Payout Platforms

Payments to contractors, gig workers, or marketplace sellers are often slow and expensive via legacy rails. With Plasma’s infrastructure, platforms can push payouts in stablecoins across borders with lower cost and faster settlement — improving worker experience and reducing operational costs. This is exemplified by real integrations like the one Plasma has announced with MassPay, enabling USD₮ payouts across more than 230 countries through one API.

What This Means for the Future of Finance

The combination of stablecoin value stability, fast settlement, low cost, and global accessibility positions Plasma as a compelling infrastructure for modern payments. These rails not only help individuals and businesses cut costs but also challenge legacy systems that have long dominated international money movement.

In doing so, stablecoin payments — supported by networks like Plasma — could radically reshape how money moves around the world: from slow, expensive, and opaque systems to fast, transparent, and affordable rails that serve everyone with an internet connection.

Final Thought

Cross-border payments and remittances have been ripe for disruption for decades. With Plasma’s stablecoin-native architecture — zero-fee transfers, custom gas support, Bitcoin-anchored security, and high throughput — it’s now possible to imagine a future where sending money overseas or paying global partners happens in seconds, at minimal cost, and with complete transparency.

That future isn’t hypothetical; it’s being built today — and Plasma is at the forefront of it.

In public blockchains, transparency has always been double-edged: it helps verify activity, but it exposes sensitive financial and personal data — a major obstacle for widespread enterprise adoption and real-world financial use cases. Dusk Network tackles this problem head-on by combining zero-knowledge cryptography with regulatory compliance, enabling privacy without sacrificing auditability — something few blockchains can honestly claim.

At the core of this effort is Dusk’s advanced zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) implementation — a technology that enables private verification of data without revealing the data itself. This approach is critical for applications like confidential settlements, private asset transfers, and regulated identity verification that are compliant with legal frameworks like MiCA, MiFID II, and GDPR-style regimes.

Why Zero-Knowledge Proofs Matter for Privacy & Compliance

A zero-knowledge proof allows one party to prove a statement — such as “I am eligible to trade a regulated asset” — without disclosing the underlying information. For example, instead of revealing your full identity to prove you are over a certain age, a ZKP can simply prove you meet the age requirement, protecting data privacy while satisfying compliance needs.

This capability is central to Dusk’s design. The protocol uses ZKPs across its ecosystem — from private transactions to confidential smart contracts — to enable privacy at scale without sacrificing transparency when regulators or authorized parties require access.

“Privacy is a right, and institutions will never adopt blockchain for real financial operations without privacy that respects compliance and auditability.” — Derived from Dusk Network philosophy.

How Dusk Uses ZKPs in Practice

Dusk integrates zero-knowledge proofs across multiple core components of its architecture:

Private Transactions: Users can conduct shielded transfers with confidential balances and metadata, giving individuals and institutions privacy similar to traditional finance.

Selective Disclosure: Authorized entities like auditors or regulators can be given just enough information to verify compliance without exposing extra data.

Confidential Smart Contracts: Contracts can process private logic and conditions (like eligibility checks or compliance rules) without broadcasting sensitive parameters publicly.

Technical innovations like PLONK and systems developed for efficiency ensure that these proofs are both secure and scalable — a necessity for real adoption.

Bridging Privacy With Regulation — A Practical Balancing Act

Most blockchains focus on one side of the privacy vs. regulation spectrum: either fully public transparency or complete anonymity with little regulatory alignment. Dusk’s approach — privacy with compliance — is strategically designed for regulated markets, meaning financial institutions, exchanges, and custodians can operate on-chain without stepping outside legal boundaries.

This balance is achieved through a combination of on-chain ZKP capabilities and protocol-level compliance tools. For example, Dusk’s infrastructure can encode regulatory requirements like KYC/AML directly into smart contracts using zero-knowledge attestations, eliminating the need for external systems while preserving confidentiality.

This is especially important in the European financial landscape, where regulations such as GDPR demand strict privacy protections, and MiCA is setting standards for digital assets. Dusk’s architecture is built to meet these frameworks without compromising core blockchain principles.

Real Studio-Ready Analogy: The “Private Yet Verifiable Badge”

An analogy makes this easier to understand: Think of Dusk’s ZKPs like a secure badge system. Instead of carrying your whole passport to prove you are certified, you present a cryptographic badge that proves your certification without displaying personal details. The verifier sees the badge is valid and moves on — no extra data is shared. In the blockchain world, this means privacy for users and trust for institutions.

What This Means for the Future of Finance

Zero-knowledge proofs are no longer a theoretical novelty; on Dusk, they are a practical foundation for financial products and institutions. By enabling confidential transactions, regulatory auditability, and private smart contracts, Dusk is paving the way for:

✔ Privacy-preserving asset tokenization
✔ Compliant identity verification without data leakage
✔ Institutional adoption of blockchain markets
✔ Reduced operational costs through encoded compliance

These capabilities position Dusk as a privacy-enabled, regulation-aware blockchain infrastructure that can handle the needs of real financial markets — not just speculative crypto use.

Final Thoughts

Zero-knowledge cryptography is often talked about as a cool technology — but Dusk has turned it into usable, institutional-ready privacy that meets real market requirements. By blending privacy with compliance and auditability, the network addresses one of the biggest obstacles for blockchain adoption across traditional finance and regulated markets.

That’s not theoretical — it’s practical privacy engineered for the future of finance.

#dusk $DUSK @Dusk_Foundation

In an increasingly regulated tech landscape, data archival and compliance are not optional — they’re essential. From financial audit trails to legal records and governance evidence, many industries must store historical data in a way that is tamper‑evident, retrievable, and verifiable. As Web3 apps scale, builders need decentralized solutions that satisfy both crypto‑native principles and real‑world compliance requirements. Walrus Protocol’s decentralized storage offers a compelling solution by combining resilient archiving with verifiable availability — supporting compliance use cases far beyond simple file hosting.

1. Why Archival Storage Matters for Compliance

Regulatory frameworks across jurisdictions — including financial audits, securities law, and data protection regimes — often require:

long‑term retention of records,

unaltered historical data, and

proof of integrity (showing that records haven’t been tampered with).

Whether it’s transaction logs for blockchain services, audit evidence for decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms, or historic records for decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), reliable archival storage is crucial for legal defensibility and operational integrity.

Centralized storage solutions often fall short in decentralized ecosystems because they:

are controlled by single entities,

risk downtime or censorship,

lack cryptographic proofs of existence at a point in time.

Walrus addresses these exact problems using decentralized, verifiable storage.

2. Walrus’s Archival Capabilities

Walrus Protocol is designed to efficiently store large blobs of data — including structured historical records — in a way that is both decentralized and verifiable. Its design includes:

Advanced erasure coding that spreads data fragments across nodes while enabling efficient recovery.

On‑chain metadata and proofs of availability that act as immutable attestations that data is present and retrievable.

Integration with the Sui blockchain, where proofs and metadata are stored as smart contract objects.

According to the official Walrus docs, one of its core use cases is long‑term archival of blockchain history. For example, this can include sequences of checkpoints, transaction and effect content, and historic snapshots of blockchain states, code, and binaries — all stored at much lower cost than storing them on chain directly.

This architecture is crucial for compliance because:

Immutable receipts on Sui prove a record existed at a specific time.

Encoded blobs ensure retrievability even if many nodes fail.

Decentralization removes single‑point censorship or loss, an increasingly important factor in regulated environments.

3. Compliance Use Cases in Web3 & Beyond

A. Financial Regulation & Audit Trails

Decentralized finance platforms often handle thousands of transactions per hour. Regulators and auditors may require historical records that:

show transaction sequences,
capture smart contract states over time, and
can be independently verified by third parties.

With Walrus archival, datasets can be stored as blobs with availability proofs on chain. Third‑party auditors or regulators can verify integrity directly against the Sui ledger, eliminating reliance on any single provider’s logging system.

B. Legal Evidence & Forensic Readiness

In disputes or investigations, organizations may need to demonstrate that a record was created on a certain date and hasn’t changed since. Walrus’s combination of decentralized storage and on‑chain proof means that once a blob is certified, its existence and authenticity can be verified independently, even years later.

C. Cross‑Jurisdiction Archival Requirements

Many industries — such as finance, healthcare, and energy — must comply with cross‑border data retention rules. Walrus’s decentralized model helps comply with such regulations by reducing dependency on any one geographic location or service provider. Historical blobs can be stored in a distributed network while still offering a single logical source of truth backed by Sui.

4. Technical Design That Supports Compliance Needs

Walrus’s technical setup inherently supports the properties required for compliance archival:

Immutable Attachments to On‑Chain Objects
Each stored blob is represented by a Sui object that holds metadata — including availability proof, storage duration, and ownership. Because this metadata lives on a blockchain, it’s tamper‑resistant and auditable.

Low‑Cost Storage of Large Data Sets
Traditional blockchains charge huge premiums for on‑chain data. Walrus’s economics use erasure coding and distributed node storage to keep costs manageable while maintaining availability.

Scalable Retrieval & Verification
Even if the dataset grows to terabytes, the archived blobs can be:

retrieved via blob IDs,
verified against on‑chain proofs, and
used by compliance tools or forensic systems without trusting any central authority.

5. Real‑World Potential & Future Trends

Walrus isn’t just theoretical — ecosystem integrations demonstrate real demand for decentralized archival storage:

Chainbase, an omnichain data network, uses Walrus to store raw data for hundreds of chains, showing how decentralized archival can scale to massive datasets across ecosystems.

Projects like Tusky integrate Walrus for verifiable storage with encryption and automated retrieval, proving that decentralized storage can support both public and private archival needs.

These integrations indicate how Walrus can serve as a compliance‑friendly archival layer for enterprise and regulatory use cases — not just for Web3 builders, but for any system needing trustable, tamper‑evident, decentralized archives.

Conclusion — Durable, Verifiable Archives for Compliance

Archival storage for regulatory compliance is a sophisticated requirement that goes beyond simply storing data. It requires trustlessness, verifiability, availability, and cost‑efficiency — all at once. Walrus Protocol delivers on these needs by combining:

decentralized blob storage,
on‑chain proofs,
compatibility with smart contracts,
and efficient data encoding.

This makes Walrus a strong candidate for compliance archival use cases across finance, audit, legal discovery, and cross‑jurisdiction regulatory regimes — offering a future‑proof solution in the growing world of Web3 and beyond.

#walrus $WAL @WalrusProtocol