2025 in review and our predictions for 2026

The past year has been a turning point for digital money. What began as a decade of experimentation has now entered a phase of real-world scale, institutional adoption, and regulatory clarity. Stablecoins moved from niche infrastructure into the global financial system with transacted volumes surpassing traditional card networks, regulated issuers entering mainstream conversations, and corporates re-architecting treasury operations around faster settlement and programmable liquidity.  

For Europe in particular, 2025 was the year when the promise of compliant, bank-backed digital money came into focus. With MiCA coming into force, the region took a global lead in defining what trustworthy, transparent and supervised stablecoins should look like. Against this backdrop, we at Quantoz have strengthened our position as a European-native, regulated issuer with Tier-1 banking partners, multi-chain coverage, and a growing ecosystem of exchanges, corporates, and fintech platforms adopting our issued tokens (EURQ, USDQ and EURD).

During 2025 we have:

• Expanded to 70+ exchanges

• Added 4 new blockchains and integrated with Layerzero for broader access

• Reached more than $9BN in cumulative traded volume across USDQ & EURQ  

As the year draws to a close, it’s clear that regulated digital money is no longer a forecast or a pilot. It is becoming the new settlement layer for finance, commerce, and embedded financial services.

This year brought a step-change in how businesses think about moving and holding money. If 2025 was about regulatory clarity and institutional confidence, 2026 will be about acceleration. Based on the momentum across Europe and global markets, we expect five shifts to define the coming year:

1. Stablecoins will become a primary rail for cross-border business payments

Global SMEs and fintechs will increasingly adopt EMT-based settlement to bypass slow and expensive correspondent banking routes. By the end of 2026, we expect a meaningful share of new cross-border payment flows to move to regulated stablecoin rails, driven by lower costs, instant settlement and 24/7 availability.

2. Treasury teams adopt multi-chain liquidity strategies

Corporates will manage EUR, USD and stablecoin liquidity side-by-side across several chains, using programmable rules to rebalance intraday positions, optimise FX, and unlock capital trapped in legacy systems. Digital money accounts with embedded automation will become core treasury tools.

3. Regulated European stablecoins will power tokenized financial markets

As more banks, exchanges and infrastructure providers launch tokenised securities, money market funds and supply-chain assets, MiCA-compliant EMTs will become the preferred settlement asset. By late 2026, regulated euro-denominated stablecoins will underpin a significant number of RWA and tokenisation programmes across the continent.

4. Agentic payments will move out of the pilot phase

In 2026, AI-driven agents will begin executing low-risk, rule-based payment and treasury actions in live environments. Adoption will be driven by regulated, programmable digital money that enables automation with clear controls, auditability and human oversight.

5. Europe becomes the global hub for compliant digital money issuance

With MiCA fully operational and supervisory frameworks maturing, Europe will become the most attractive jurisdiction for enterprises seeking predictable regulatory conditions. Stablecoins issued by supervised European EMIs; with segregated reserves and Tier-1 banking partners will become the benchmark for safety and trust.

At Quantoz, our mission remains clear; to build Europe’s most trusted, regulated digital money rail, and make payments faster, cheaper and automated for businesses. In 2026, we will continue to expand our stablecoin ecosystem, deepen our partnerships, and introduce new services that support the growing demand for compliant, programmable financial infrastructure.

Thank you to our customers, partners, developers, and community for an extraordinary year. We look forward to building the next chapter of digital money together.