Buy a Licensed Company 
Explore VASP Data 
Talk to an Expert 
Can the Euro Coin Reach the Same Heights as Bitcoin as a Means of Exchange?
While Bitcoin excels as a scarce asset, it struggles as everyday money due to supply constraints and volatility. In contrast, the euro already dominates European retail payments, with the proposed ECB digital euro designed specifically for spending through zero-interest rules and holding limits. Ultimately, the digital euro’s primary competition will be established card networks rather than cryptocurrency.
Image by Tomasz Reinholt
Bitcoin’s price has reached great heights. As a means of payment, though, it has never come close to the plain euro. The European Central Bank’s latest payments study found that cash still made up 52% of point-of-sale payments in the euro area in 2024. In 2016, the figure was 79%.
So the real question is narrower. Can a digital euro, public or private, carry that lead onto phones and blockchains, where bitcoin arrived first? This article looks at one country’s bitcoin experiment, private euro tokens, the planned digital euro, and the committee that sets the euro’s interest rates.
Why Bitcoin Struggles as Everyday Money
El Salvador ran the best-documented test. Bitcoin became legal tender there in 2021, and businesses had to accept it alongside the US dollar. Polling by IUDOP, the Central American University’s opinion institute, tracked the results. Bitcoin use for payments fell every year, from about a quarter of people in 2021 to 8.1% in 2024.
In January 2025, lawmakers voted 55 to 2 to make acceptance voluntary. The change was part of a $1.4 billion financing arrangement with the IMF.
Gresham’s law, an old rule of thumb, fits the pattern. When two kinds of money circulate side by side, people spend the one they value less and keep the other. In El Salvador, the dollar kept doing the paying. A coin with a capped supply gives its owners a reason to wait. A means of exchange needs owners willing to let it go.
Euro Stablecoins Have the Right Unit but Little Scale
Private euro tokens already exist. Under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), they are e-money tokens issued by licensed e-money institutions and banks. They carry what bitcoin never had at scale: the same unit as the price tag in a shop.
Scale is the problem. DefiLlama’s stablecoin tracker shows about €800 million (roughly $910 million) in euro-pegged tokens in circulation. Dollar-pegged tokens total about $313 billion. That puts the euro’s share below 0.3%.
MiCA shapes these tokens as payment tools, not savings: Article 50 bars issuers from paying interest. It also shields the euro from foreign tokens. Under Articles 23 and 58, tokens in non-EU currencies, such as dollar stablecoins, face a ceiling. Past a quarterly average of 1 million payments and €200 million a day in one currency area, the issuer must stop issuing. Bitcoin has no issuer, so no such rule can apply.
The Digital Euro Is Designed to Be Spent, Not Held
The public digital euro doesn’t exist yet. The European Commission proposed the law in 2023. The European Parliament’s economic affairs committee backed a position in June 2026, and talks with member states began in July. The ECB plans a 12-month pilot from the second half of 2027. It says issuance could follow in 2029, assuming the law is adopted during 2026.
Under the current proposal:
- It would be legal tender, so merchants that already accept digital payments would have to take it.
- Basic use would be free for individuals.
- Balances would earn no interest.
- Each person could hold only a limited amount, and the ECB has modeled limits of up to €3,000.
- It would work offline, and the ECB says it will never be programmable money.
The holding limit is there to stop deposits draining out of banks. El Salvador showed that a legal duty to accept a currency doesn’t, on its own, make people spend it. A digital euro would pair that duty with the price-tag advantage the private tokens already have.
A Euro Answers to a Committee, and Markets Trade Its Next Move
Bitcoin’s supply schedule has been fixed in code since 2009, so nobody needs to forecast it. The euro works differently. The ECB’s Governing Council sets interest rates at scheduled meetings, and its decisions move what banks pay on euro savings.
September brought rate rises on both sides of the Atlantic. On September 10, the ECB raised its rates by a quarter point, taking the deposit rate to 2.50%. The US Federal Reserve followed six days later with its own quarter-point rise. Because a digital euro would pay no interest, a rise like the ECB’s would make it a worse place for savings than a bank account. That suits a currency built to be spent.
Prediction markets are one way to observe how traders price expectations around upcoming ECB and Fed decisions. Each contract asks a yes-or-no question, such as whether a bank will raise rates at its next meeting. Its price reads as a probability. An overview of the best prediction market sites covers the US platforms where contracts like these are listed. A Federal Reserve Board working paper published this year found Kalshi’s federal funds rate forecasts about as accurate as professional surveys, and quicker to update.
These venues remain contested. US courts have split over whether event contracts are derivatives or bets, so availability varies by state. In Europe, several regulators have moved against Polymarket, and France ordered internet providers to block it in July.
What Bitcoin Keeps That a Digital Euro Gives Up
The 2008 bitcoin whitepaper promised payments sent directly between two parties “without going through a financial institution.” The network still works that way. A digital euro would run through banks and payment providers that know their customers. Only its offline mode would come close to cash.
That committee in Frankfurt is also a matter of trust. Euro users are counting on it to bring inflation back to its 2% target. For people who have watched their own currency fail, a coin with no one in charge can look like the safer choice.
Can the Euro Win?
As a means of exchange, the euro already beats bitcoin, and a digital euro could carry that lead onto phones. It will never reach bitcoin’s heights as an asset. One digital euro will always be worth one euro, and the holding limit would keep balances small. Two details of the final law could still weaken its case: dropping compulsory acceptance, or setting holding limits far below what the ECB modeled.
The digital euro’s tougher competition is cards. Between 2022 and 2024, cash fell from 59% to 52% of in-store payments, while cards rose from 34% to 39%. Private euro stablecoins are still too small to join that contest.
