Circle is dominating Europe’s stablecoin market via EURC

Europe’s stablecoin market seems to be now controlled by Circle, and not everyone is comfortable with that. The issuer of USDC is quietly becoming the dominant player in euro-denominated stablecoins through EURC. This shift triggered criticism from parts of the crypto community. Some of them see it less as a product win and more as a policy-driven outcome.

DeFi analyst Ignas called it out bluntly. He looks at Circle’s dominance as “a European fail.” In his view, Europe has repeatedly missed key technology waves. This includes Big Tech, cloud, and AI. However, it is now falling behind in the stablecoin sector.

The global crypto market witnessed a minor recovery rally. Its cumulative cap now stands around $2.47 trillion. Bitcoin price has jumped by more than 8% over the last 7 days. The stablecoin market is picking up and hovers around a $320 billion cap. Circle is the second biggest stablecoin in the race, with a cap of more than $78 billion.

Circle captures Europe? 

Ignas is a post highlighted that EURC is not even a core focus for Circle. ECB plans a digital EUR by 2029, but it will be proposing a 3,000 EUR holding limit per wallet. He sees this plan designed to fail. By then, Circle’s network effects get locked in. It seems that the euro stablecoin remains a much smaller piece of the business.

The USDC issuer has managed to capture a good share of the European market. There are several native stablecoin projects that exist in the region. The tally includes Qivalis, EURe, EURI, EURA, and more. They are still small in comparison to the major players. This is mainly due to a lack of funding and incentives for adoption.

He compared EURC, which holds a market cap of $460 million, with USDC. He called it a side project for an American company. Ignas claimed the Circle didn’t win on its product. They lobbied for the rules that gave them the market, he added. Dante Disparte (Circle policy chief) was lobbying for MiCA as “GDPR for crypto” since 2022.

3/ And Circle is now running the exact same playbook in the UK.

Dante Disparte just addressed the House of Lords pushing for a UK law that combines MiCA + the US GENIUS Act.

I was just reading his FT opinion letter and it finally clicked with me.

They lobby for the rules that… pic.twitter.com/t4ezKWieD9

— Ignas | DeFi (@DefiIgnas) April 10, 2026

DeFi analysts stated that Circle hosted “Navigating MiCA” sessions with Stefan Berger. When MiCA came into law, Circle was the only top 10 stablecoin issuer ready with a license. Meanwhile, Tether’s EURT was out and reportedly delisted from CEXs.

He mentioned that ‘Luckily’ Circle had a French EMI license to get all the European market share. They grew from 17% to 60% share in 12 months without competing. Ignas believes that Circle is now running the exact same playbook in the UK.

Circle under fire over hacks

The European Central Bank has been exploring a digital euro, but proposals under discussion include limits on wallet holdings and transfers. Ignas argued that such constraints could hinder adoption, especially if private-sector alternatives continue to build network effects in the meantime.

The company has called on EU authorities to loosen aspects of the bloc’s distributed ledger framework. It is particularly around settlement rules. They currently restrict how stablecoins can be used in capital markets. However, the USDC issuer insists that existing requirements are slowing adoption.

Circle landed under scrutiny over security and its incident response. This comes after the recent exploit of Solana-based Drift Protocol. It got looted of $285 million in a massive hack. Attackers moved $71 million in USDC as part of the exploit. 

On-chain investigator ZachXBT questioned whether Circle could have acted more quickly. He pointed out that the company could have frozen addresses linked to suspicious activity. It mentioned that the damages have receahed $420 million over the last few years across 15 different cases.

PeckShield reported that the hackers converted most of the rest of the stolen assets to USDC. The hacker used Circle’s cross-chain transfer protocol, CCTP. They bridge about $232 million in USDC from Solana to Ethereum after the Drift hack.

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