Finnish company Membrane Finance claims to be the first party to launch a fully euro-backed stablecoin. Membrane Finance falls under the supervision of the Finnish financial regulator the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority (Fin-FSA) and says its stablecoin is the first and only euro stablecoin regulated in the European Union.
Membrane Finance is excited to announce the launch of EUROe on Ethereum!
Read more at https://t.co/nV8dYKkBmKand read the thread below to see how you can get started with $EUROe from today!
— EUROe (@EUROmoney) February 2, 2023
Launch of the EUROe stablecoin
US-based Circle Inc launched its first euro-backed stablecoin in June, but the Euro Coin (EUROC) is managed by Silvergate Bank, which is a US-controlled bank. Every EUROe token from Membrane Finance is backed by at least one real euro within a European financial institution or bank.
The company is convinced that its digital euro will allow us to make instant payments possible with euros. In addition, it is a lot cheaper to make transactions with the stablecoin than within the traditional financial system. Membrane Finance CEO Juha Viitala hopes his company’s stablecoin will draw more Europeans into the DeFi world.
“Stablecoins are an essential part of the transition to a blockchain technology-based money system. Europeans deserve to have a fully Euro-backed stablecoin regulated from within the European Union,” said Juha Viitala.
Euros on Ethereum
The stablecoin from Finnish Membrane Finance is initially only available on Ethereum, but the company already has plans to expand to other blockchains. Stablecoins have a long history within the industry. The first US dollar stablecoin was Tether (USDT), which originally launched on the Bitcoin Omni Layer and later transitioned to Ethereum in 2018.
On-chain foreign exchange (FX) is a new model of global value exchange that offers a faster, cheaper, and more efficient alternative for cross-border payments.
Our recent research paper with @circle has it all 🧵https://t.co/NGniRo8yrp
— Uniswap Labs 🦄 (@Uniswap) January 19, 2023
At the moment, Tether is even the third largest cryptocurrency in the market, after bitcoin and ethereum. Stablecoins have the potential to make international payments a lot cheaper. According to Circle and the team behind Uniswap, who published a joint study on this, costs can be reduced by 80 percent compared to transactions within the traditional financial system.