DEA Quarterly Insights: Shaping the Future of Digital Money | Q3 2025

Welcome to the latest edition of the Digital Euro Association's Quarterly Insights! 

This comprehensive blog post presents a concise overview of our association's activities and achievements over the past three months. As we continue to navigate the ever-changing landscape of digital money, this summary highlights our strides in promoting financial innovation, fostering education, and exploring groundbreaking initiatives.

Join us on this exciting journey as we delve into the key milestones and accomplishments that shape the future of digital money!

New Members  

In Q3 2025, the DEA welcomed euro-V as its newest Bronze member, IntellectEU, d-fine, Giesecke+Devrient (G+D) as its newest lite members and Fintech Armenia as its newest strategic member. 

euro-V is a German payments specialist with more than forty years of experience in international payments and a solutions portfolio spanning the digital euro, Verification of Payee (VoP) and payment service. euro-V is known for combining regulatory rigour with pragmatic execution and for offering a modular, future-proof VoP gateway that meets European Payments Council recommendations while staying compliant with the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA).

IntellectEU empowers businesses worldwide with the tools and expertise required to navigate capital markets innovation and payment modernization.

d-fine is an European consulting firm that provides innovative and future-proof solutions through sustainable technological implementation. The typical integrated d-fine approach − design and implementation under one roof – is a core component of their project work.

Giesecke+Devrient (G+D) is a global SecurityTech company headquartered in Munich, Germany. G+D makes the lives of billions of people more secure. The company shapes trust in the digital age, with built-in security technology in three segments: Digital Security, Financial Platforms and Currency Technology.

FinTech Armenia brings deep expertise in digital transformation, blockchain, AI, and financial innovation, acting as a regional bridge between banks, corporates, government, academia, and startups.

DEA Publications

Launch of the DEA MiCAR Tracker

In Q3, we proudly launched the DEA MiCAR Tracker website – our new open-source platform that makes European crypto regulation more transparent and accessible.

🌍 What the MiCAR Tracker offers

• EMTs Dashboard – tracks issuers of Electronic Money Tokens across Europe.
• CASPs Dashboard – newly added view into Crypto-Asset Service Providers.
• Open source & community-driven – the code and datasets are fully open, so anyone can explore, contribute, and suggest new features.
• Authoritative data – sourced directly from ESMA, ensuring reliability and regular updates.

💡 Why it matters

The MiCAR framework is reshaping crypto regulation in the EU. By providing transparent, regularly updated dashboards, we’re giving policymakers, compliance experts, and innovators a clear view of the evolving landscape.

📢 Get involved

The MiCAR Tracker is free and public. Share it with your network – whether they’re working on compliance, regulation, or crypto policy – and help us spread clarity in this fast-moving space. Got ideas? We welcome contributions and feature requests!

👉 Visit the Website: https://micatracker.digital-euro-association.de/

DEA Policy Brief - ECON Hearing on the Digital Euro

In July, the DEA issued a detailed briefing on the European Parliament’s ECON Committee hearing on the digital euro, which featured the ECB’s Piero Cipollone, alongside Valdis Dombrovskis and John Berrigan representing the European Commission. The hearing addressed the political, technical, and market dimensions of the proposed Single Currency Package and the design of the retail digital euro.

Key themes included monetary sovereignty, privacy, programmability, costs and incentives for PSPs, and the relationship between MiCAR and the digital euro. Policymakers converged on the view that the digital euro should complement – not compete with – private payment solutions, anchoring monetary sovereignty while enabling innovation and competition.

The DEA’s reflection summarised MEPs’ concerns on holding limits, merchant fees, and user experience, highlighting the political momentum and points of contention ahead of the legislative negotiations. Our contribution emphasised the need for clear separation of institutional roles between the ECB’s rulebook and the legislative text, robust privacy guarantees, and a level playing field for European PSPs to innovate within the new infrastructure.

💎 Access is exclusive for DEA members. Know more about the DEA memberships here.

DEA Strategy Brief - ECB Focus Session on wholesale central bank money & DLT settlement

In July, the DEA released an in-depth account of the ECB’s Focus Session on DLT-based wholesale central bank money settlement, held on 15 July 2025. The session brought together over 900 participants from more than 45 countries to discuss the Eurosystem’s findings from its 2024 exploratory work and outline its next steps: Project Pontes (short-term pilot) and Project Appia (long-term framework).

The brief highlighted how the ECB’s trials tested three interoperability models – the Trigger Solution, DL3S, and TIPS Hash-Link – across more than 200 real transactions, achieving €1.6 billion in simulated settlement value. Pontes will provide short-term interoperability between DLT platforms and TARGET services via a delivery-versus-payment model, while Appia represents a future-ready framework to support multi-ledger, multi-currency integration across Europe’s financial infrastructure.

The DEA’s analysis underscored the ECB’s ambition to foster public–private co-development, aligning innovation with policy goals such as financial stability, efficiency, and resilience. Our contribution called for a continued emphasis on interoperability standards, harmonisation, and rulebook clarity to ensure Europe’s wholesale CBDC experimentation evolves in step with market realities and private-sector capabilities.

💎 Access is exclusive for DEA members. Know more about the DEA memberships here.

Update on the ECB’s Digital Euro Progress Report

In August, the DEA published a detailed analysis of the ECB’s third progress report on the digital euro preparation phase, released on 16 July 2025. The briefing outlined the Eurosystem’s intensified cooperation with market actors and its progress toward a comprehensive digital euro rulebook.

Key developments included advanced testing of offline functionality, refined user experience and accessibility standards, and continued efforts to embed privacy, resilience, and interoperability across front- and back-end infrastructures.

The analysis unpacked the rulebook’s structure, stakeholder consultations via the Euro Retail Payments Board, and vendor tenders for technical providers. We also highlighted the ECB’s open standards approach, its focus on public-private collaboration, and the ongoing legislative alignment between Parliament, Council, and the ECB.

Our contribution emphasised the importance of ensuring real-world usability, particularly for offline payments, seamless onboarding for merchants, and operational resilience as the ECB approaches its October 2025 decision on the next project phase.

💎 Access is exclusive for DEA members. Know more about the DEA memberships here.

DEA Strategic Brief - US Digital Assets Report: Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology

In August, the DEA released a strategic briefing on the US Working Group’s Digital Assets Report, which sets a blueprint for US leadership in digital asset innovation while maintaining financial stability and national security.

We covered the GENIUS Act, the first federal stablecoin law, defining payment stablecoins as non-securities and non-commodities, and establishing 1:1 reserve, redemption, and transparency standards. The Act marks a major milestone, signalling the US’s intent to reinforce dollar dominance through regulated innovation and cross-border interoperability.

The report also examined the proposed CLARITY Act, DeFi oversight models, digital asset taxation reforms, and AML/CFT modernization, all aimed at balancing innovation with risk management. The DEA highlighted how these US frameworks may shape global norms, urging European policymakers to anticipate regulatory convergence and align standards for stablecoins, custody, and tokenised finance.

💎 Access is exclusive for DEA members. Know more about the DEA memberships here.

DEA Policy Brief - Rapporteur’s perspective: Fernando Navarrete on the digital euro

In September, the DEA published a policy brief analysing Fernando Navarrete’s article, “Do we really need the digital euro? A solution to what problem exactly?”. Navarrete, the European Parliament rapporteur for the digital euro, distinguishes sharply between wholesale and retail CBDCs, supporting the former while expressing strong reservations about the latter.

The brief unpacked Navarrete’s key critiques – including holding limits, bank disintermediation risks, governance gaps, and political fragility – while acknowledging his endorsement of wholesale CBDC as a natural, low-risk extension of central bank infrastructure. The DEA positioned its response clearly: supporting a retail digital euro as essential for European sovereignty and autonomy in payments, provided it is designed to be privacy-preserving, innovation-friendly, and built in collaboration with the private sector.

Our analysis concluded with three principles for success:

1. Privacy as the foundation of trust, embedded by design;
2. Private-sector innovation as the driver of inclusivity and adoption; and
3. Sovereignty through resilience and scale, ensuring Europe’s payment independence from non-EU providers.

💎 Access is exclusive for DEA members. Know more about the DEA memberships here.

DEA Events 

DEA Summerfest 2025

On July 15, 2025, the DEA proudly hosted its annual Summerfest at CMS Hasche Sigle in Munich. This vibrant gathering brought together around 45 distinguished guests, including institutional members, dedicated fellows, and experts from across politics, business, and academia, fostering a unique blend of networking and meaningful dialogue.

Read the recap: https://digital-euro-association.de/blog/recap-of-the-dea-summerfest-2025 

Watch the aftermovie 👇

Digital Euro Conference 2025

In August, the DEA proudly launched the Digital Euro Conference 2026! After three groundbreaking editions, DEC26 is set to raise the bar — bigger, bolder, and more impactful than ever before. Expect central banks, regulators, politicians, fintech innovators, industry leaders, and academia — all coming together to shape the next chapter of digital money in Europe and beyond.

Explore all the event details here: https://digital-euro-conference.de/en/

DEA Stablecoin Committee

The DEA Stablecoin Committee hit its stride this quarter: three tightly-focused sessions, strong issuer and infrastructure participation, and consistent attendance from banks, market players and various regulators. We kept our Monitor → Curate → Advocate cadence while moving draft outputs forward (MiCAR licence-tracker updates and an EU use-case playbook).

In July, we dug into the Dual/Multi-issuance debate (how global issuers structure EU EMTs for local compliance while preserving worldwide fungibility). A major issuer (Circle) joined to ground the discussion in operating reality; the group, including regulators, discussed implications for redemption, level-playing-field concerns and MiCAR supervision.

August shifted the lens to on-the-ground adoption. The founder behind cNGN (Nigeria) walked us through their regulated, Naira-pegged model and what’s actually moving: >603m cNGN in circulation, ~14.2bn on-chain volumes to date, early use cases in P2P offramping and cross-border flows, plus a supportive CBN/SEC sandbox. The takeaway for Europe: design for real corridors and distributor incentives, not just policy theory.

In September, the Wyoming Stable Token team shared a first-month snapshot of a state-sponsored stablecoin: 102% U.S. Treasury over-collateralisation, multichain testing, and a policy design that routes interest to public education - an instructive counterpoint to purely private EMT models under MiCAR. It sharpened our sovereignty discussion and informed our Q4 brief.

Debra Brooks (Wyoming Stable Token)

Across Q3, the committee operated on “all cylinders”: real-world issuer mechanics (July), frontier market usage patterns (August), and government-led design choices (September). We finish the quarter with momentum into the final quarter of 2025.

Events DEA attended

In July, DEA had the opportunity to participate in the following events:

• BaFinTech 2025. The event focused on financial technology innovations and current issues of digitalization. Experts from BaFin and the Bundesbank, as well as renowned guests from politics, business, and science, provided insights into the increasing spread of artificial intelligence in the financial industry, challenges and solutions in the field of cybersecurity, the future of digital payment methods, and initial experiences with European regulatory initiatives in digital finance.

September

• BIS Innovation Summit. The DEA was invited to this year’s BIS Innovation Summit in Basel. Our Chairwoman, Anne-Sophie Gógl, and Associate Team Member Atakan Kavuklu took part in the discussions, representing the DEA community at the highest international level.

Anne-Sophie Gógl and Atakan Kavuklu

• Austrian Payments Academy - Payment Day
  Panel Discussion: European Challenges
  
  
• CB&DC Conference 
  Presentation: The Role of Stablecoins in Financial Sovereignty
  Panel Discussion: Future of digital currencies & CBDC

Conrad Kraft (DEA) and Beat Attinger - seated (CB&DC Conference)

Dr. Jonas Gross (DEA) and Conrad Kraft (DEA)

• IMF Policy Briefing
  Presentation: Stablecoins and Financial Sovereignty
  
  
• Ripple Roadshow: Frankfurt
  Fireside Chat: The European Economy, Stablecoins, and the Post-MiCA Era

Matthew Osborne (Ripple) and Tamara F. Schmidt (DEA)

DEA Podcast

This Month in Digital Money - July 2025

July saw global central banks and private issuers accelerate progress toward digital money. Australia advanced its CBDC exploration with a new pilot framework, while Tether prepared its long-awaited U.S. market entry and institutional-grade stablecoin offering. In Europe, the ECB’s Digital Euro Progress Report and the GENIUS Act’s passage into U.S. law underscored parallel public–private momentum. Meanwhile, HSBC’s e-HKD trials on public blockchains and the Swiss National Bank’s expansion of wholesale CBDC pilots marked growing confidence in tokenised settlement infrastructures worldwide.

🎧 Listen to the episode here: https://dea-podcast.podigee.io/78-neue-episode  

This Month in Digital Money - August 2025

August focused on evolving stablecoin regimes and shifting global leadership. The Wyoming stablecoin initiative pushed the U.S. toward state-level monetary innovation, while Hong Kong’s framework for stablecoins and the rise of offshore yuan-pegged tokens highlighted Asia’s assertive stance in shaping the next phase of digital finance. In Europe, contrasting developments – from Germany’s emerging bank-backed euro stablecoin to the UK’s relative innovation lag – illustrated the widening divergence in Western approaches to stable digital money.

🎧 Listen to the episode here: https://dea-podcast.podigee.io/79-neue-episode  

Future Financial Markets Infrastructure – A Conversation with KPMG Germany

In a special episode of the DEA Podcast, we sat down with Jens Siebert, Partner at KPMG Germany, to explore how tokenisation, wholesale CBDC, and regulated blockchains are transforming Europe’s financial market infrastructure. 

Key Takeaways from the Conversation:

✅ The Big Forces Reshaping Capital Markets:
We discussed how tokenisation and digital money are redefining financial plumbing – from securities settlement to payments – and why these developments are central to the future of Europe’s Capital Markets Union.

✅ Wholesale CBDC and Asset Tokenisation:
Jens highlighted how pilots and proof-of-concepts across Europe are demonstrating real efficiency gains in settlement, liquidity management, and collateral mobility, showing how wholesale CBDC can strengthen resilience in capital markets.

✅ Regulated Layer-1 Blockchains:
The conversation explored the growing debate around regulated public blockchains as potential foundations for next-generation financial markets – merging transparency, interoperability, and compliance within trusted environments.

✅ Bridging Regulators, Institutions, and Innovators:
KPMG plays a key role in connecting regulatory bodies, financial institutions, and technology providers, helping align innovation with policy and risk frameworks to ensure that Europe’s digital transformation remains secure, scalable, and compliant.

🎧 Listen to the episode here: https://dea-podcast.podigee.io/80-neue-episode 

This Month in Digital Money - September 2025

September’s discussions traced a clear convergence between public and private innovation in digital money. The UK’s proposed stablecoin holding limits and MEP Fernando Navarrete’s critique of the digital euro reflected ongoing debates on policy scope and sovereignty, while European banks’ launch of a euro stablecoin and the ECB’s digital euro innovation platform showcased Europe’s commitment to collaborative progress. On the institutional side, DBS and Franklin Templeton’s tokenised fund solutions and the Fireblocks-Circle partnership demonstrated how regulated stablecoin infrastructure is rapidly scaling – bridging traditional finance and Web3 ecosystems.


🎧 Listen to the episode here: https://dea-podcast.podigee.io/81-neue-episode  

The DEA remains committed to pioneering the future of digital money, driven by innovation, collaboration, and a shared vision of a digitally empowered world. As we look ahead to the next quarter, we are excited to embark on new endeavors, expand our horizons, and continue making a positive impact. Thank you for being a part of our journey!

⏪ Previous Edition: https://blog.digital-euro-association.de/dea-quarterly-insights-q2-2025  

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