While U.S. stablecoin announcements keep rolling in — with Fiserv the latest to join — ECB President Lagarde is still rallying support for a Digital Euro.

On Monday, she urged the European Parliament to fast-track Digital Euro legislation, warning that U.S. stablecoins are moving fast. But resistance is mounting. Lawmakers raised concerns over costs, complexity and whether Europe even needs a retail CBDC.

“At the very least, political opposition keeps growing. Things will move in the coming months,” a senior European official told us today. “Remaining staunchly opposed to stablecoins is starting to feel almost absurd,” he added.

Today’s Briefing also dives into:

• Interview: Inside Fiserv’s stablecoin strategy

• Luxembourg emerges as European institutional blockchain hub

• Digital Asset raises $135 million to scale Canton Network

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Exclusive: Inside Fiserv’s Stablecoin Strategy

A new stablecoin: On Monday, U.S. fintech giant Fiserv announced plans to launch its own stablecoin, FIUSD, in partnership with Circle and Paxos. The stablecoin is planned to go live on Solana by the end of the year and will be integrated across Fiserv’s network of 10,000 financial institutions and six million merchants.

Why it matters: Fiserv is one of the largest and most entrenched infrastructure providers in U.S. financial services. By integrating FIUSD directly into mobile banking apps and merchant systems, it aims to normalize stablecoin usage across treasury flows, point-of-sale transactions, and cross-border payments.

• “For us, stablecoins are the entry point. We see them as digital cash, a new money movement rail,” Cooper Thompson, Head of Embedded Finance and Digital Assets Product at Fiserv, told Blockstories. “But we’re not stopping there. Our broader strategy includes programmable payments, tokenized deposits, and real-world assets.”

Key design details: FIUSD will be issued via a white-labeled structure, leveraging Circle and Paxos as underlying infrastructure provider.

• SDK: Banks and financial institutions will be able to embed digital asset functionality directly into their mobile apps through Fiserv’s stablecoin SDK.

• User UX: End users will see a separate FIUSD balance within their banking interface — fully integrated, but clearly distinguishable from traditional cash. Fiserv handles all onchain complexity behind the scenes, eliminating the need for wallets, seed phrases, or blockchain addresses.

• PayPal partnership: Through Paxos, FIUSD will be interoperable with PayPal’s PYUSD, enabling peer-to-peer transfers between bank accounts and PayPal wallets.

Regulatory momentum: The move comes just days after the U.S. Senate passed the GENIUS Act, a bill aimed at regulating stablecoins in the U.S. It now heads to the House of Representatives where it needs to be reconciled with the STABLE Act.

• “We’ve kept a close eye on the digital asset space for years, but as a heavily regulated and trusted infrastructure provider, we took a cautious approach. The evolving regulatory environment, especially with U.S. legislation like the GENIUS Act, created a window for us to move decisively”, said Thompson.

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🎙️Full interview: In our full conversation, Thompson explains:

• Why Fiserv chose to issue FIUSD rather than rely on existing stablecoins

• How partnerships with Circle, Paxos, PayPal, and Mastercard are structured

• How the company is thinking about DeFi integration in the long term

• Whether banks will benefit from the interest earned on FIUSD reserves

Luxembourg Emerges as Europe’s Institutional Blockchain Hub

New MiCA license: On Friday, Coinbase announced it had secured a MiCA license from Luxembourg’s Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF), becoming the fourth global exchange to do so after OKX, Crypto.com, and Bybit.

Ireland -> Luxembourg: The approval is especially noteworthy given that the company had initially set its sights on Ireland, traditionally the European gateway for American tech firms.

• “The process began just before Christmas and was completed in around half a year,” Daniel Seifert, Regional Managing Director EMEA at Coinbase, told Blockstories. “We had an open mind on which country to apply in. Luxembourg was highly engaged and responsive from the beginning. It was clear they wanted to be a MiCA hub.”

Government leaning forward: According to multiple sources, Luxembourg’s approach shifted notably with the implementation of MiCA. Previously seen as cautious, the country has emerged as one of Europe’s most assertive crypto jurisdictions.

• “Since MiCA, Luxembourg has become significantly more pro-business, unlike more defensive countries such as France,” noted a contact within the French administration.

• Seifert put it more directly: “The government, finance ministry, regulator, and industry are all aligned: strongly pro-growth, pro-crypto, pro-innovation, and technology-neutral.”

Four blockchain laws: That alignment is backed by legal infrastructure few jurisdictions can match. Over the past years, Luxembourg has passed four successive blockchain laws that recognize DLT for issuing and transferring securities, permit fully dematerialized instruments, align national regulation with EU pilot regimes, and introduce “control agents” to enable automation in tokenized financial markets.

• “Luxembourg is the only jurisdiction where the legal framework genuinely allows us to operate in a way that’s both compliant and scalable,” explains Pedro Herranz, Managing Partner at MTCM Securities. This week, his firm, in collaboration with Tokeny, introduced a new dual-format issuance framework that lets issuers launch both ISIN-listed notes and permissioned security tokens side by side, a first of its kind.

State issuer: It’s not just policy support. The state is now a user of onchain finance. On June 16, the Luxembourg Treasury issued €50 million in native, zero-coupon blockchain bonds using HSBC’s Orion platform. Listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange, these bonds exist entirely onchain.

The ecosystem takes shape: The strategy is clearly working. Even before Coinbase, Luxembourg had already drawn heavyweights like Clearstream and Bitstamp, the latter now owned by Robinhood. Banking Circle, the only credit institution currently issuing a MiCA-regulated euro stablecoin (EURITE), is also based in the country and under CSSF supervision.

More to come: Banking giant Standard Chartered is expected to secure a full Crypto Asset Service Provider (CASP) license in the coming months. Binance, according to Blockstories sources, has also filed an application with the CSSF and continues to maintain a local presence.

A conversation with Yuval Rooz, co-founder and CEO of Digital Asset, following their recent fundraising announcement.

1. Updated Regulatory Framework for Tokenisation (EFAMA) — The European asset management association calls for a harmonised EU framework to scale tokenisation, warning that fragmented regulation could hold Europe back. EFAMA also published a new Buy‑side Practitioner’s Guide outlining concrete recommendations on liquidity, compliance, and integrating tokenised MMFs into collateral markets.

2. The Next-Generation Monetary System (BIS) — The Bank for International Settlements outlines its vision for a tokenized economy in its 2025 annual report, advocating for tokenized deposits and wholesale CBDCs over stablecoins, which it says lack the core features of sound money.

3. Stablecoins and the Collapse of the Legacy Payment Model (Rob Hadick) — Dragonfly’s Rob Hadick argues that stablecoins won’t just plug into existing payment rails — they’ll replace them. By enabling direct ledger transfers, stablecoins could compress the payment stack and power a new generation of fintech infrastructure.