The United States has taken a bold, even bewildering step into the digital age of money. Through two executive orders in early 2025, the White House unveiled a Digital Asset Strategy (DAS) aimed at turning the US into the “crypto capital of the world.” The plan is ambitious: a national crypto reserve, a push for dollar-based stablecoins, and a striking ban on the development of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) by any US agency.
Yet this strategy, according to a new European Parliament report (Angeloni, Tille, US Digital Asset Strategy and the European Response, PE 764.386, 2025), might be planting the seeds of its own undoing. If stablecoins—private digital tokens pegged to the US dollar—replace traditional payment systems, the Federal Reserve’s monetary control could be seriously weakened. “The unicity of the dollar as unit of account would also be jeopardised”, the report warns.
This is not just a domestic American story. Europe is watching closely. Could the spread of dollar-based stablecoins threaten European monetary sovereignty? The answer is: not quite, but vigilance is essential. As the report puts it, “monetary sovereignty… depends on two conditions: dominant use of the domestic currency for transactions and contract denomination; existence of effective monetary policy instruments”. Neither is under immediate threat, unless Europe dollarises (implausible) or euro-backed stablecoins replace ECB-supervised payments (possible, though still remote).
But here comes the paradox: the much-anticipated digital euro won’t help much. “Protecting monetary sovereignty does not add significantly to the balance of arguments for or against a retail digital euro,” the authors argue bluntly. A wholesale CBDC could enhance cross-border infrastructure—but it won’t shield the euro from the systemic implications of stablecoins.
So what should Europe do? The report points to two regulatory battlegrounds. First, solidify the euro’s legal tender status with greater clarity and enforceability. Second, tighten the Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA), especially the rules on e-money tokens (EMTs), to prevent private actors from mimicking public money too closely and creating confusion—or worse, systemic risk.
This isn’t just a matter of currency mechanics. It’s a question of democratic control over the very architecture of money. The US may be charging ahead into an uncertain crypto future, but Europe still has time to build its own path—with clearer rules, more consistent oversight, and above all, a renewed sense of what sovereignty in the digital age should mean.
As the authors of the European Parliament’s in-depth analysis conclude, “a retail digital euro… would not contribute significantly to protecting Europe’s monetary sovereignty” and the real safeguards lie elsewhere: in a firm legal definition of the euro’s tender status and in a regulatory framework that clearly distinguishes between public and private money. Rather than chasing technological trends, Europe must ensure that its monetary order remains coherent, resilient, and transparent—before the logic of the blockchain begins to rewrite the logic of sovereignty.