Alex Höptner leans back and reflects on a career that has taken him from the heart of Germany’s traditional financial system to the cutting edge of digital money. For nearly two decades he worked within the machinery of established markets — Deutsche Börse, Börse Stuttgart, BitMEX. Today, as chief executive of the crypto start-up AllUnity, he is betting on something that might sound unlikely: a Euro stablecoin designed not for day traders, but for the backbone of European commerce.
Stablecoins — digital tokens pegged to traditional currencies — have long been dominated by dollar-based giants like Tether and Circle’s USDC. The euro versions barely register in comparison. Yet AllUnity, backed by an unusual consortium of DWS (the asset management arm of Deutsche Bank), Flow Traders, and Galaxy Digital, believes the euro’s role in global trade makes the case compelling. Its new token, branded EuroAU, is the first euro-denominated stablecoin to be licensed by BaFin, Germany’s financial regulator.
Höptner’s conviction is rooted in both pragmatism and geopolitics. “The competition isn’t EuroAU versus USDT,” he said in a recent conversation. “The competition is EuroAU versus fiat euro payments.” He sees the stablecoin not as a tool for speculative crypto markets but as an upgrade to Europe’s payment rails, promising faster cross-border transactions and lower costs for corporates whose global supply chains stretch from Frankfurt to Buenos Aires.
The regulatory backdrop is central to his argument. While the United States has only recently passed the Genius Act, a federal framework for stablecoins, Europe has already rolled out its landmark MiCA regulation. Unlike the experimental free-for-all of early crypto, AllUnity insists its stablecoin must rest on sturdy institutional footing. “If you are a global corporation moving billions in transactions,” Höptner explained, “you cannot rely on three guys in a garage issuing a token. You need Tier 1 jurisdiction, Tier 1 regulation, Tier 1 shareholders.”
That insistence on legitimacy may prove decisive. Corporate treasurers — the ultimate target market — are cautious by design. They already juggle fiat accounts, FX risk, and settlement delays. A euro stablecoin, Höptner argues, could reduce counterparty risk and speed up cash flows. The efficiency gain, he says, is not theoretical but immediate: “They get the money earlier. They can reinvest sooner. There are only winners.”
Still, the obstacles are formidable. The euro stablecoin market is negligible compared with the dollar’s $275 billion dominance. Liquidity, exchange listings, and real-world adoption will not come overnight. And privacy concerns — given that transactions on public blockchains can be traced — may limit appeal until stronger safeguards emerge. Höptner counters that corporates can begin with intra-company settlements, where transparency is less of an issue, and expand gradually.
Beyond economics, there is also politics. Stablecoins are increasingly entangled in a geopolitical contest over monetary sovereignty. China has tested a digital yuan, the U.S. has tilted toward stablecoins instead of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), and the European Central Bank is still weighing its own digital euro. Höptner believes Europe cannot afford to sit back. “If Europe doesn’t provide a euro stablecoin, European corporates will end up transacting in U.S. or Chinese tokens. That means identity, transaction data, and ultimately sovereignty migrate abroad.”
AllUnity’s approach, then, is both defensive and ambitious: secure a European foothold in a field where the euro risks irrelevance. The support of DWS, Flow Traders, and Galaxy Digital is meant to give the project the credibility needed to convince skeptical corporates — and perhaps reassure regulators that this is not another speculative play.
Höptner knows the road will be long. Stablecoins are easy to mint, but difficult to scale. The real challenge, he says, lies not in the technology but in building trust, distribution, and partnerships with Europe’s entrenched banks. Still, he is undeterred. “We don’t want to replace the euro,” he said. “We want to digitalize it. The competition is not stablecoins versus banks. The competition is digital payments versus the old rails.”
For now, EuroAU is small. But its backers hope that in three to five years, when corporates are ready to move beyond pilot projects, they will find a euro stablecoin already tested, licensed, and waiting. Whether that future materializes may depend less on blockchain code than on the willingness of Europe’s financial establishment to embrace a currency that looks familiar — yet behaves entirely differently once it leaves the ledger.
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