On the very day MiCA came into full force, one of Europe's largest banks put the euro on Ethereum. Crédit Agricole launched EURXT, its euro stablecoin, and immediately used it for something that had never been done before in Europe.
This isn't another exploratory announcement. It's regulated bank money circulating on-chain, with a concrete use case from day one.
What Crédit Agricole Actually Launched
EURXT (Euro eXchange Token) is a MiCA-compliant electronic money token issued on Ethereum as an ERC-20 by the group's securities services arm, CACEIS, a custodian holding roughly 4.6 trillion euros in assets under custody, according to the bank's official press release. At launch, 20 million tokens are in circulation, backed 1:1 by euro reserves on CACEIS Bank's balance sheet, with a minimum subscription of 10,000 euros currently reserved for institutional and corporate clients.
The debut transaction is the more significant part. EURXT settled the subscription of a tokenized money market fund managed by Amundi, Europe's largest asset manager with 2.4 trillion euros under management. It's the first subscription in Europe to a tokenized UCITS fund settled with a euro stablecoin: fund unit and payment both travel on-chain, in the same flow, with settlement in seconds rather than wire transfers and manual reconciliation.
The Euro On-Chain Race Has Begun
EURXT enters a small but fast-accelerating market. According to CoinDesk citing issuer data as of July 1, 2026, euro-denominated stablecoin supply has more than doubled in the twelve months since MiCA's electronic money token rules came into effect, yet still represents just 0.5% of the global stablecoin market, which remains dominated by dollar-pegged USDT and USDC.
The competitive landscape is taking shape quickly. The Qivalis consortium, representing 37 European banks, is preparing its own euro stablecoin for later this year. In Italy, the BANCOMAT project involving nine banks is targeting a pilot as early as this month. The whole race intersects with the ECB's digital euro initiative: European monetary sovereignty runs through this territory.
Euro Stablecoins Today
Circulating supply of major euro electronic money tokens, millions of €. Source: CoinDesk via issuer data, July 1, 2026
- EURC (Circle): ~378 mln
- EURCV (Société Générale): ~124 mln
- EURXT (Crédit Agricole): ~20 mln at launch
Why the Bank-as-Issuer Model Changes Things
The conceptual leap here is about who's issuing. EURC comes from a fintech. EURCV operates in a restricted perimeter. EURXT is on-chain money issued directly from the balance sheet of a systemic bank, with immediate distribution potential through CACEIS's existing institutional client base. CEO Olivier Gavalda described it in the official launch statement as a stable, secure payment tool designed to prepare the next generation of financial services, embedded within the group's ACT 2028 strategic plan.
The direction mirrors what European banks are doing more broadly across custody and tokenization. MiCA has reframed on-chain finance from territory to avoid into a competitive arena that banks must occupy. Across the Atlantic, the GENIUS Act is pushing U.S. banks in the same direction on the dollar side, creating a transatlantic dynamic worth watching.
Crédit Agricole launched EURXT, a MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin issued on Ethereum by its Caceis Bank unit. It starts with €20M in circulation, fully backed 1:1 by euro reserves, and is being used to settle a tokenized Amundi money market fund.
, unfolded. (@cryptounfolded) July 1, 2026
The institutional-focused move…
The Reserve Clause Every Investor Should Read
One technical detail deserves attention because it separates the marketing from the structure. EURXT's reserves sit on CACEIS Bank's balance sheet with accounting segregation, not legal segregation. In the unlikely event of the bank's insolvency, token holders would rank as unsecured creditors, with no priority claim over the reserves. On top of that, up to 70% of reserves may be invested in highly liquid securities rather than held as pure cash.
None of this is unusual for a bank-issued electronic money token under MiCA. But it is the concrete difference between “1:1 backed” as a marketing slogan and “1:1 backed” as an architectural guarantee. The full regulatory framework remains accessible through the ESMA register, and reserve details plus the white paper are published on the official CACEIS website. From here to year-end, the real measure of success will be a single metric: how many actual settlement flows choose euro on-chain over a wire transfer.
