CEOInterviews.AI
Start App
Christine Lagarde
Christine Lagarde
President, European Central Bank
Watch

ECB President Christine Lagarde: Stablecoins within a Global Context

📅 May 08, 2026 Banco de España 36 MIN 729 VIEWS 24 SEGMENTS · 2 SPEAKERS
Keynote speech by Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank, opening the 1st Banco de España LatAm Forum: Capital Flows, Exchange Rates, and Geopolitics, held May 7–9, 2026 in Roda de Bará (Tarragona, Spain). This first edition brings together central bank governors and leading academics to exchange ideas in a setting designed for high-level discussion, strengthening dialogue between Latin America and Europe. Debates will focus on current international economic issues such as stablecoins, tariffs and interest rates, and the forum will also host the Spring Meeting of CEMLA gover...

What Christine Lagarde said

Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.

Christine Lagarde argued that the case for promoting euro-denominated stablecoins is weaker than it appears once their monetary and technological functions are separated. She noted stablecoins have grown from less than $10 billion to over $300 billion, with nearly 90% of the market controlled by Tether and Circle, and that the US GENIUS Act explicitly aims to entrench dollar dominance. She warned that euro stablecoins could create financial stability risks, including feedback loops and fragmentation, and that they are not the most efficient way to strengthen the euro's international role. Instead, she advocated for building public infrastructure anchored by central bank money, such as the Appia project for wholesale settlement starting September 2026, and for more integrated capital markets through the savings and investment union.

Key takeaways

  1. Euro-denominated stablecoins are not the most efficient way to strengthen the euro's international role.
  2. Stablecoins have grown from less than $10 billion to over $300 billion, with nearly 90% of the market controlled by Tether and Circle.
  3. The US GENIUS Act explicitly aims to ensure the continued global dominance of the US dollar.
  4. The Appia project will offer wholesale settlement in central bank money from September 2026.
  5. Stablecoins cannot build the foundations for a stable monetary system and would amplify vulnerabilities.

Numbers and commitments

FigureWhat it refers toTypeAt
$10 billion stablecoin market size 6 years ago metric 5:49
$300 billion current stablecoin market size metric 5:49
90% share of stablecoin market controlled by Tether and Circle metric 5:49
0.01% share of global B2B flows represented by stablecoin cross-border payments metric 12:31
$7 billion amount of tokenized funds on chain metric 18:15
98% share of stablecoins denominated in US dollars metric 20:07
$3.3 billion USDC reserves disclosed by Circle during SVB collapse metric 22:22
295 number of trading venues in Europe in 2023 metric 28:24
14 number of central clearing counterparties in Europe in 2023 metric 28:24
32 number of central securities depositories in Europe in 2023 metric 28:24

Chapters

  1. 0:00Introduction and tribute to José Luis Escrivá
  2. 7:20Stablecoin growth and market concentration
  3. 12:31Monetary function of stablecoins
  4. 18:15Technological function and settlement infrastructure
  5. 21:23Risks of euro-denominated stablecoins
  6. 30:34Alternative approaches and central bank money
  7. 34:14Conclusion and call for public infrastructure
Gabriel 0:02 ↗
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I will be very brief. I just need to start by thanking my dear friend and partner from the very first minute, Governor José Luis Escrivá. I cannot overstate his work in bringing central banks in Europe and Latin America together closer. So, thank you very much, José Luis Escrivá. And in his name, I want to thank all the staff of Banco de España for this great event with this great view. It's very relevant for us in Latin America to be so close and closer to Europe. And also, it's a huge pleasure for me to be here, especially having the chance to share the stage with Christine Lagarde. Some of you may know I'm relatively new to this job. Lagarde is a reference to all of us. But for us that are relatively new to this job, Lagarde is a role model. We are always looking up for her words of wisdom, especially when we are navigating through troubled waters like the times that we are passing now. And one of the things that I learned during these last 17 months at this job is something that keeps this community together: all central banks have the same state of mind and mood. We are constantly concerned. And it's the fact that the news recently have helped us to keep firmly in that state of mind. But long before the geopolitical tensions monopolized the debate, the risks and opportunities of stablecoins are on the top of every central bank mind. I see risks and opportunities because, of course, every one of us in the financial market—supervisors, regulators—have always seeking to boost and welcoming technological innovation. But recently Lagarde said that she has some difficulty to see the case, the business case for stablecoins, and the way I understood that is the key question is when stablecoins offer a better solution or with less friction because of some technological advantage, or when it's the case that we see less friction because it is a way to go around the regulatory framework and it's offering some kind of opacity to that kind of operation. And if that is the case, we will need something that Madame Lagarde has also a lot of experience: synchronize our movements in these troubled waters that we see today. So, without further ado, I pass the floor to Madame Lagarde. Thank you very much.

1 more exchange in this transcript

Sign in free to read the rest of this interview. No card required.

Sign in to read the full transcript

Cite this transcript

APA, MLA, BibTeX
APA

Lagarde, C. (2026, May 8). ECB President Christine Lagarde: Stablecoins within a Global Context [Interview transcript]. Banco de España. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1322296/

MLA

Christine Lagarde. "ECB President Christine Lagarde: Stablecoins within a Global Context." Banco de España, 8 May. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1322296/.

BibTeX 
@misc{lagarde2026_1322296,
  author       = {Christine Lagarde},
  title        = {ECB President Christine Lagarde: Stablecoins within a Global Context},
  howpublished = {Interview transcript, Banco de España. CEOInterviews.AI},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = {may},
  url          = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1322296/},
  note         = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}