Traditional financial giants can’t sit still anymore.

Ten established European banks—including ING from the Netherlands, BNP Paribas from France, and Dekabank from Germany—have recently made a big move: they’ve teamed up to launch a company called Qivalis, with plans to issue a fully compliant euro stablecoin in the second half of 2026.

What does this mean? To put it simply, Europeans are no longer comfortable with the dominance of US dollar stablecoins. Right now, USDT and other dollar-based stablecoins basically monopolize the market, and these European banks are eager to get a piece of the action.

What’s interesting is that this initiative isn’t coming from some upstart project, but from legitimate, traditional financial institutions. Compliance, credibility, and financial backing are no issue here. If they really pull this off, the stablecoin market landscape could be reshuffled.

Can a euro stablecoin challenge the position of current players? We’ll see in 2026.