The European Central Bank began work on a digital euro back in 2023. The official launch was planned for some time between 2026 and 2027, but there is still no exact date. As a result, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino chose to skip the bureaucratic details and summed it up simply: “Santa will bring us all the Digital Euro.” A straightforward way to hint that while the wait may be long, there will still be a gift under the tree.
Meanwhile, the Christmas tale seems to be getting complicated: France, Italy, and Austria are demanding tighter oversight of cryptocurrencies under the MiCA law, dissatisfied with differences in national regulation. France’s AMF (the financial regulator) has even threatened to prohibit crypto companies licensed in other EU countries from operating in its territory.
Tether, for its part, has refused to play along. The company declined to comply with MiCA requirements for stablecoins. The result was that its assets were delisted from major platforms, including Coinbase and Kraken. It is a kind of “Christmas delisting.”
The result is an intriguing picture: regulators argue, companies are stubborn, the launch timing is unclear, yet Tether’s CEO still promises that Santa will come. Perhaps the only real guarantee in this story is that things will never be boring when it comes to the digital euro.
