One of forty-five, and the first to be significant

The European Banking Authority has classified Circle's USDC as a significant e-money token under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, the first of the 45 e-money tokens notified in the bloc to receive the label, according to an EBA press release dated Wednesday. The token is issued in the EU by Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS.

The classification changes who supervises what. From 12 November 2026, the EBA says, USDC will fall under MiCA's dual supervision regime for significant tokens, with direct supervision of own funds, the reserve of assets, liquidity requirements, and recovery and redemption plans passing from the French regulator, the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution (ACPR), to the EBA. By our count that is 29 days after the announcement.

The ACPR keeps supervision of governance, qualifying holdings, fit-and-proper assessments, outsourcing and conflicts of interest, and the EBA says the two authorities will work closely together on the transition. The EBA classifies tokens under Articles 43 and 56 of MiCA, using indicators set out in Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1506, and reassesses each year whether a token should still count as significant. The release does not say which indicator or threshold USDC met.

The EBA has also signed a memorandum of understanding with the New York State Department of Financial Services, which it says will support cooperation and information exchange in its supervision of cross-border stablecoin activity. USDC is issued in the United States by a separate entity, Circle Internet Financial, LLC.

The Block put USDC's supply at nearly $73bn on its own data dashboard, behind Tether's USDT at $184bn, in a dollar-pegged stablecoin market it counted at $294bn. By our arithmetic, USDC is about a quarter of that total. Those are The Block's figures, not the EBA's. The EBA release names no official and carries no quotation, and Circle had published no statement on the decision on its press page or blog by Thursday afternoon; The Block's report carried none either.

The practical meaning is a shift in supervisory weight. A token large enough to matter across the single market now has its reserve and redemption arrangements overseen at EU level, rather than by one national authority. For holders and for firms that use USDC as a settlement asset, the release describes no new obligation or change in redemption rights; any such detail will sit in the EBA's supervisory work after 12 November.

The decision follows a year in which European regulators have focused on stablecoins' weak points. Komposite reported that ESMA told national supervisors to expect licensed firms to stop serving clients in non-compliant stablecoins, and that the Financial Stability Board called stablecoins untested in a crisis. USDC is the first token the EBA has placed in MiCA's significant tier.