TBW - Alexander Höptner (AllUnity): "For each G7 currency, the market will converge toward two significant stablecoins"
What is AllUnity's business model and what are your main sources of revenue?
We are stablecoin issuers. AllUnity is a German electronic money institution, licensed by BaFin in Germany, fully compliant with the MiCA regulation. Our initial model, like that of all issuers, is built on interest generated by reserves. That is the industry's primary revenue source. Over time, once we are fully positioned in cross-border payments, we also plan to introduce transaction fees. Those are the two pillars. We have no ambition to multiply ancillary services. In an ideal world, we do one thing and we do it well.
The entire debate around stablecoins in Europe seems to revolve around reserve yield. Is that the right lens?
No. And that is precisely where the debate goes astray. Who captures the yield, who does not -- these questions completely miss the real issue. When you talk to large corporations managing international commercial flows, they do not ask you what your yield rate is. They ask whether you can save them time and money on their cross-border payments. Every day, 600 billion euros flow in and out of the European Union through traditional channels. If even a fraction of those flows migrate to stablecoins, that is a considerable market. Our direct competition is not Visa or Mastercard. It is the global payment system as it exists today.
“The euro stablecoin as settlement infrastructure for institutional commercial flows is still uncharted territory”
What do you see as the killer use case for EURAU?
Payments. It is as simple as that. The vast majority of stablecoin transactions remain concentrated within the crypto sphere. Tether has established itself in certain emerging markets, in Africa or Latin America, for peer-to-peer use cases in high-inflation contexts. That is a genuine success, but it is not the market we are targeting. The euro stablecoin as settlement infrastructure for institutional commercial flows is still uncharted territory. Neither Tether nor Circle has truly addressed it. That is where we want to be.
Central banks are developing CBDCs. Do they not risk rendering private stablecoins obsolete?
CBDCs have a legitimate purpose, and I do not dispute that. But they face a structural constraint: they only work within an ecosystem where everyone accepts them. And that is not the case. The United States has explicitly ruled out this model. Using a CBDC for transatlantic transactions therefore becomes very complicated, if not impossible. Then there is the question of programmability. A private stablecoin can be enriched with data, and can incorporate identity mechanisms, privacy features, and access rights. We are only at the beginning of programmable money, but when those use cases deploy at scale, the flexibility of a stablecoin will be in a completely different league from that of a CBDC. These are two different tools for different purposes.
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EURAU's circulating supply remains limited. How do you explain that?
Very simply: we are not targeting the crypto market. Virtually the entire supply of euro stablecoins currently originates from the crypto sphere -- BTC perpetual positions, USDT and USDC pairs. That is not our core target. We are building infrastructure for real-economy payments. That kind of infrastructure takes time. Banks need to offer wallets to their corporate clients. Treasury management systems need to natively integrate stablecoins. Accounting standards need to evolve. None of that happens in a matter of weeks. We have the shareholders and the funding to stay the course. And the potential is real: the euro represents between 20% and 40% of global reserves depending on the instrument. In stablecoins, it barely accounts for 0.5%. That gap is our addressable market.
Circle struck a deal with Coinbase to accelerate USDC adoption. Are you considering a similar strategy for EURAU?
It is a smart deal, driven by market logic I understand. Even though we target a different segment, having a certain level of supply visibility is necessary to exist as a credible player. We are in discussions with market participants along those lines. There is genuine demand for a euro stablecoin that is not pegged to dollar dynamics. Roughly 20 to 30% of active users on major platforms are European. They are carrying currency risk across all their dollar-denominated products. A credible euro stablecoin addresses that need. Integration simply takes time, partly because exchanges are currently receiving approaches from many issuers and have to prioritize among multiple integrations.
“Costs are high, revenues slow to materialize, and you need a solid foundation to stay the course”
Will we see consolidation in the stablecoin market, as in all mature financial sectors?
Inevitably. But the final structure will not be a monopoly. For each G7 currency, the market will converge toward two significant players. Not one, because you need a fallback option. Not five either, because maintaining that many different APIs and standards becomes unmanageable for all participants. Right now, everyone thinks they are the next Tether. The result is excessive fragmentation. Within one to two years, many of these players will have disappeared. This is infrastructure, not a consumer product. Costs are high, revenues slow to materialize, and you need a solid foundation to stay the course.
You are currently deployed on Ethereum. What is your multi-chain strategy?
We are not limiting ourselves to EVM. Give us a little time. We will shortly be available on Solana, Canton, BNB Chain, and other networks. The principle is straightforward: it is not our place to dictate to our clients which infrastructure they should operate on. If a company comes to us with a use case on Optimism, who are we to tell them that EURAU is not available where they need it? We need to be present wherever the market is developing. That is a necessary condition for being a credible partner in stablecoin payments.
You are in testing phase on Circle's ARK network. Can these payment-focused proprietary blockchains compete with public chains?
Honestly, I do not know. And I think nobody can really know today. The privacy layers are not yet deployed. The identity mechanisms are not finalized. The articulation between identity, privacy, and transaction still has to be built entirely. It is entirely possible that in three years, a protocol we are not even considering today will have established itself as the reference. That is precisely why we need to remain agnostic and available across all infrastructures currently under development. Betting on a single protocol at this stage would be a strategic mistake.
AllUnity is backed by three very different shareholders: DWS, Galaxy Digital, and Flow Traders. Why is that configuration an advantage?
Each one brings what the others cannot offer. An issuer owned 100% by a major bank would immediately run into a problem: other institutions would refuse to use its stablecoin for fear of funding a direct competitor. A purely crypto player may have a thorough command of the digital ecosystem, but if it wants to convince CAC 40 or FTSE 100 groups, it lacks institutional credibility. At AllUnity, Flow Traders and Galaxy bring market-making and liquidity capabilities. Galaxy also contributes on the technology side and provides access to crypto ecosystems. DWS manages reserves globally, which will be decisive when we operate in a multi-currency setup with multi-asset reserves. It is a combination that speaks to both the crypto world and the traditional financial world.
With such distinct shareholders, how do you manage potential conflicts of interest?
The answer is simpler than it might appear. AllUnity is a German financial institution. BaFin strictly ensures that operational management remains independent from the shareholder structure. My shareholders exercise their rights as shareholders, nothing more. The services we purchase from them are provided at market conditions on a non-exclusive basis. If BlackRock wanted to join us tomorrow, it would receive exactly the same terms as DWS. There is no bridge between capital and operational decisions. What may appear complex from the outside is, in reality, tightly governed. And it is also one of the reasons we deliberately kept the shareholder base tight. Three to five shareholders is still manageable. With two dozen investors on the cap table, politics inevitably takes precedence over operations.
If you could change one rule of the game to accelerate institutional adoption of stablecoins, what would it be?
Accounting classification. That is the main obstacle today, and it is largely underestimated. Because stablecoins are issued under the MiCA regulation, which is a text on crypto-assets, raising the question on how it is treated on the balance sheet. That can trigger substantial capital requirements for financial institutions and creates major uncertainty around accounting treatment for corporates. And yet, an e-money token is a tokenized version of electronic money. It is cash or a cash equivalent, full stop. Reclassify stablecoins as cash equivalents, and a large share of the friction disappears immediately. Everyone already understands the efficiency potential of these instruments. The problem is not product comprehension. It is a regulatory and accounting treatment.
“We are not issuing the CHF stablecoin from Switzerland and we are not distributing it directly in the Swiss market”
Let us move to the Swiss franc. How did you arrive at the decision to launch a CHF stablecoin?
The initiative came from the market, not from us. In our thinking around cross-border payments, we naturally identified currencies with strong commercial ties to the euro area within a comparable regulatory framework. Switzerland fit that profile, just like the Swedish krona or the Polish zloty. But it was institutional players who approached us directly to ask whether we could issue a MiCA-compliant CHF stablecoin to offer to their clients. The demand was there, clearly expressed. We followed.
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Will you be subject to FINMA supervision?
No. We are not issuing the CHF stablecoin from Switzerland and we are not distributing it directly in the Swiss market. It is our institutional partners who distribute the product to their Swiss clients. Our stablecoin is a MiCA product, issued from within the European Union. If and when FINMA defines a more precise regulatory framework, we will reassess our positioning. That could lead us to set up a local entity, to form a partnership, or to change nothing at all. But as things stand, we are not a Swiss issuer.
How do you assess the Swiss regulatory framework for stablecoins?
To be polite: it is not ideal. Switzerland has historically been a pioneer in digital assets. On stablecoins, it has fallen meaningfully behind. I hope that changes in 2026 or 2027 -- developments are expected. But the risk for Switzerland is real: the market is being structured now, payment infrastructures are being built now. If the regulatory framework takes too long, the country will end up with solutions it did not choose and does not control. The demand exists. So does the regulatory ambiguity. That imbalance cannot last indefinitely.
Do you think other players will position themselves on CHF if the framework evolves favorably?
Yes, without doubt. But the consolidation logic will apply there as well. The CHF stablecoin market will be able to accommodate two, perhaps three players. No more. One can imagine a split between a more institutionally focused player and one more oriented toward retail, with a possible CBDC solution as a complement. I would not be surprised if Circle took an interest if the market moves in a convincing direction. But all of that remains conditional on the regulatory lock being opened. That is what determines everything else.
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