While Europe debates… the US builds. 🧡
But the real difference isn’t ideology. It’s timing.
A new chapter just opened.
The CLARITY Act stablecoin compromise is out and one detail stands out: “Passive yield” is banned and activity-based rewards are allowed. Same mechanism. Different name.
Call it what you want. Users can still earn. Banks pushed hard for a full ban. They didn’t get it.
Because the real battle was always about who controls money flows.
Now zoom out. The US didn’t start with regulation.
It started with actors. Coinbase. Circle. Real businesses. Real scale. Only then came the framework.
Europe chose a different path. MiCA came first, before real industry leaders emerged.
And in that vacuum… guess who showed up?
Banks. Lobbyists. Incumbents.
The result?
A market that looks… compliant. But thinner.
Across parts of Europe today only a handful of licensed players remain, most are highly specialised and very few can cover the full stack.
From:
And something deeper changed.
Crypto used to be open, borderless, plug-and-play.
Now? Local, supervised, deeply integrated.
Presence matters. Licensing matters. Connections matter.
Meanwhile… dollar stablecoins are already powering cross-border payments, used as collateral and embedded in financial infrastructure. Quietly becoming… the default layer.
So here’s the uncomfortable question: What happens when innovation doesn’t wait… but relocates?
Because capital doesn’t argue. It moves.
This is not a “US vs Europe” story. It’s a sequence problem.
Build first → regulate later
vs
Regulate first → shape what can exist
And maybe that’s the real takeaway: the future of finance won’t be decided by who regulates more… but by who allows something worth regulating to emerge first.
Europe doesn’t need to copy, but it may need to ask itself: did we regulate a market… before it had the chance to exist?
The race for financial infrastructure is already underway. 🧡
