Europe knows it will have to embrace a digital euro soon. To become a global digital leader and avoid dependence on American and Asian technological infrastructures, European policymakers and regulators have to make progressive decisions.
A critical stumbling block for Europe’s digital economic thinking is so-called stablecoins. Stablecoins can be privately issued and have the potential to become globally accepted and systemically relevant, disrupting long-established financial systems. Consequently, today’s political discussions surrounding stablecoins are dominated by concerns over financial stability and orderly monetary policy.
Agata Ferreira is an assistant professor at the Warsaw University of Technology and a guest professor at a number of other academic institutions. She studied law in four different jurisdictions, under common and civil law systems. Agata practiced law in the U.K. financial sector for over a decade in a leading law firm and in an investment bank. She is a member of a panel of experts at the EU Blockchain Observatory and Forum and a member of an advisory council of Blockchain for Europe.
Robert Kopitsch is the founder of Blockchain for Europe and has acted as secretary-general since its foundation in 2018. Simultaneously, Robert serves in Brussels as APCO’s European Financial Services, FinTech and Blockchain lead. Prior to joining APCO, Robert worked for the Austrian Ministry of Finance and the Wirtschaftsrat Deutschland in Vienna, as well as in the European Parliament and the EU office of Raiffeisen Bank International in Brussels.
Philipp Sandner founded the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center (FSBC). From 2018 to 2020, he was ranked as one of the “top 30” economists by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), a major newspaper in Germany. Since 2017, he has been a member of the FinTech Council of the Federal Ministry of Finance in Germany. He is also on the Board of Directors of Blockchain Founders Group, a Liechtenstein-based venture capital company focusing on blockchain startups.