Circle’s EURC grows as trade war pushes euro higher — Analyst

Published

2 months ago

April 14, 2025

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Circle’s EURC grows as trade war pushes euro higher — Analyst

The market cap of Circle’s Euro Coin (EURC), a euro-pegged stablecoin, is growing quickly as the ongoing trade war pushes the US dollar price lower.

“In recent weeks, interest in the euro has grown tremendously” and “this interest has not escaped the Circle EURC stablecoin,” Obchakevich Research founder Alex Obchakevich wrote in a recent X post.

The euro has risen by 2.2%, reaching its highest price since February 2022 at its current price of $1.13.

Obchakevich said that amid this happening, decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Aave saw €2.3 million of Euro Coin inflows in April alone. He further highlighted that EURC’s capitalization is growing at a rapid pace.

CoinMarketCap data shows EURC’s market cap rose from under $84 million at the end of 2024 to more than $198 million as of mid-April — a 136% increase year to date.

The euro grows amid an increasingly harsh trade war

The euro’s recent rally comes as the US dollar weakens on the back of escalating trade tensions. Since Dec. 31, 2024, the dollar has dropped from 0.97 euro to 0.88 euro, a 9.3% decline against the euro.

The US and European Union “are likely to reach an agreement on a trade deal that will stabilize the euro at $1.11 to the dollar,” Obchakevich said. Still, he expects the Euro Coin to keep growing:

“EURC will continue to grow through integration with various payment systems and blockchains.“

The analyst said that after launching on Ethereum, Euro Coin was also deployed on Avalanche, Base, Stellar, Sonic and Solana, leading to a growing supply. He shared his outlook on future market developments:

“I predict EURC to grow to 400 million euros by the end of this year. This will be further impacted by MiCa regulatory support and economic challenges.“

MiCA works in Circle’s favor

Euro Coin and USDC (USDC) issuer Circle is reaping the rewards of its regulatory-friendly strategy. The firm’s products are the top euro and US dollar-pegged stablecoins that comply with the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation.

The current stablecoin market leader is Tether, with its USDt (USDT) stablecoin currently having a market cap of $144 billion according to CoinMarketCap data. This is significantly higher than leading stablecoin USDC’s $60 billion market cap.

Still, many expect this gap to shrink as the USDt keeps being pushed from the European Union’s market due to a lack of MiCA compliance. This trend culminated in the world’s leading crypto exchange, Binance, delisting USDt for its European Economic Area-based users to comply with the rules in March.

Magazine: How crypto laws are changing across the world in 2025

Politics

‘No doubt’ UK will spend 3% of GDP on defence in next parliament, defence secretary says

Published

4 hours ago

May 31, 2025

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'No doubt' UK will spend 3% of GDP on defence in next parliament, defence secretary says

There is “no doubt” the UK “will spend 3% of our GDP on defence” in the next parliament, the defence secretary has said.

John Healey’s comments come ahead of the publication of the government’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR) on Monday.

This is an assessment of the state of the armed forces, the threats facing the UK, and the military transformation required to meet them.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has previously set out a “clear ambition” to raise defence spending to 3% in the next parliament “subject to economic and fiscal conditions”.

Mr Healey has now told The Times newspaper there is a “certain decade of rising defence spending” to come, adding that this commitment “allows us to plan for the long term. It allows us to deal with the pressures.”

A government source insisted the defence secretary was “expressing an opinion, which is that he has full confidence that the government will be able to deliver on its ambition”, rather than making a new commitment.

The UK currently spends 2.3% of GDP on defence, with Sir Keir announcing plans to increase that to 2.5% by 2027 in February.

This followed mounting pressure from the White House for European nations to do more to take on responsibility for their own security and the defence of Ukraine.

The 2.3% to 2.5% increase is being paid for by controversial cuts to the international aid budget, but there are big questions over where the funding for a 3% rise would be found, given the tight state of government finances.

While a commitment will help underpin the planning assumptions made in the SDR, there is of course no guarantee a Labour government would still be in power during the next parliament to have to fulfil that pledge.

A statement from the Ministry of Defence makes it clear that the official government position has not changed in line with the defence secretary’s comments.

The statement reads: “This government has announced the largest sustained increase to defence spending since the end of the Cold War – 2.5% by 2027 and 3% in the next parliament when fiscal and economic conditions allow, including an extra £5bn this financial year.

“The SDR will rightly set the vision for how that uplift will be spent, including new capabilities to put us at the leading edge of innovation in NATO, investment in our people and making defence an engine for growth across the UK – making Britain more secure at home and strong abroad.”

Sir Keir commissioned the review shortly after taking office in July 2024. It is being led by Lord Robertson, a former Labour defence secretary and NATO secretary general.

The Ministry of Defence has already trailed a number of announcements as part of the review, including plans for a new Cyber and Electromagnetic Command and a £1bn battlefield system known as the Digital Targeting Web, which we’re told will “better connect armed forces weapons systems and allow battlefield decisions for targeting enemy threats to be made and executed faster”.

On Saturday, the defence secretary announced a £1.5bn investment to tackle damp, mould and make other improvements to poor quality military housing in a bid to improve recruitment and retention.

Mr Healey pledged to “turn round what has been a national scandal for decades”, with 8,000 military family homes currently unfit for habitation.

He said: “The Strategic Defence Review, in the broad, will recognise that the fact that the world is changing, threats are increasing.

“In this new era of threat, we need a new era for defence and so the Strategic Defence Review will be the vision and direction for the way that we’ve got to strengthen our armed forces to make us more secure at home, stronger abroad, but also learn the lessons from Ukraine as well.

“So an armed forces that can be more capable of innovation more quickly, stronger to deter the threats that we face and always with people at the heart of our forces… which is why the housing commitments that we make through this strategic defence review are so important for the future.”