When people talk about innovation in digital assets, the conversation usually starts with technology. A faster blockchain. A new stablecoin. A more efficient payment rail. The next breakthrough in tokenization. Regulation rarely enters the conversation with the same sense of excitement. Yet, during our latest episode of the Bitcoin, Fiat & Rock'n'Roll podcast, Joey Garcia offered a perspective that challenges that way of thinking. Innovation, he argued, isn't just about build

For years, the digital asset industry was fighting the same battle. It wasn't a battle over technology. It was a battle over belief. Why does blockchain matter? Why should banks care? Why would anyone move payments or financial infrastructure onto digital rails? Every conversation seemed to start from the same place, with the industry trying to justify its own existence. During the latest episode of the Bitcoin, Fiat & Rock'n'Roll podcast, Ran "Goldi" Goldshtein, SVP of Payme

For a long time, stablecoins were primarily viewed as a "byproduct" of the crypto industry. Their main function was to efficiently and cost-effectively "park" liquidity from crypto transactions. Today, however, a fundamental shift is taking place: stablecoins are increasingly evolving from a crypto product into a core component of the payment infrastructure of the future. The reasons for this lie not only in new technological possibilities but also in structural weaknesses of

"You can kill a project, but you cannot kill a thesis. The arc of technology eventually wins." - Christian Catalini Few projects in financial technology have generated as much excitement, controversy, and debate as Libra. When Facebook unveiled its vision for a global digital currency in 2019, it triggered reactions from central banks, regulators, commercial banks, fintechs, and policymakers around the world. The project ultimately failed to launch. Yet seven years later, man

"Composability is this idea of the Lego bricks, that things that you can build on top of each other." - José Fernández da Ponte There is a moment in almost every digital asset conversation where the discussion turns to technology. Questions about blockchains, stablecoins, tokenization, or the latest breakthrough quickly take center stage When José Fernández da Ponte joined us on the latest episode of the Bitcoin, Fiat & Rock'n'Roll podcast, the conversation started somewhere

“The future of money is already here. It is just not evenly distributed.” When Dante Disparte speaks about stablecoins, people listen. And we had the pleasure of speaking with him on our ‘Digital Money Interview’ series on the podcast Bitcoin, Fiat & Rock’n’Roll. This blog summarizes some of the key learnings from that conversation. As Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Global Policy at Circle - and previously one of the central figures behind the Libra project - Disparte has

Stablecoin infrastructure is beginning to reshape one of finance's oldest and most frustrating problems: the movement of money across borders. For years, international payments have occupied a strange place in the modern economy. They are essential to trade, remittances, and corporate treasury operations, yet they often remain slow, expensive, and unexpectedly opaque. In this episode of our Digital Money Interview Series, we sit down with Milind Sanghavi, Co-Founder and CEO o

Stablecoins have moved far beyond their crypto-native origins. What began as a trading instrument on exchanges is now increasingly discussed in boardrooms of banks, payment service providers, and global enterprises. In this episode, we sat down with Geetha Panchapakesan , Co-Founder of Tesser , and one of the most experienced operators in cross-border payments. With a career spanning Mastercard, MoneyGram, PayPal, Visa Direct, and Circle, Geetha has spent decades building glo

The European Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet will fundamentally change the payment landscape in Europe - similar to how the introduction of SEPA did almost a decade ago. Financial institutions are facing regulatory obligations, but at the same time can realize operational and strategic benefits. What is the EUDI Wallet? At its core, the EUDI Wallet is a digital wallet that stores digital identity credentials, such as ID or credit cards. However, its actual scope is much broade

Summary: As part of our Digital Money Interview Series on Bitcoin, Fiat and Rock’n’Roll, we’ll accompany each episode with a blog post capturing the most compelling ideas and takeaways from our conversations on digital money. In this first post, Jonas sits down with Jonathan to explore why we’re launching this series now, what we hope to achieve with it, and how the digital money conversation has evolved over the past several years. Why This Series, and Why Now? When Bitcoin,

Summary: What really happens to your EUDI Wallet when your phone disappears or you switch to a new one? The answer exposes a deeper conflict in Europe’s digital identity architecture — one where portability meets unmovable cryptographic trust. Dive in to see why your credentials can’t be copied, yet your identity remains recoverable. At the recent Digital Asset Saloon organized by KPMG where the etonec team spoke around on the European Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet, a vivid

Summary: The initial eIDAS regulation in 2014 forced the European member states to move towards electronic identities (eID), but this resulted in fragmented approaches and differing maturity levels across them. With eIDAS 2.0 the European Commission aims to harmonize this fragmented ecosystem by introducing common, interoperable rules and a unified EUDI wallet for all European citizens. The current eID landscape The European electronic identity (eID) market is many things, b

Summary: Europe is assembling a decentralised trust framework from established standards and new legal obligations. This article shows who makes that trust possible, how it works, and why the EUDI project deserves a closer look. When people first hear about the European Digital Identity (EUDI) wallet, they usually fall into one of three camps. For some, it sounds beautifully simple: you open a mobile wallet, scan a QR code, and share your ID for all kinds of use cases. Done.

Summary: The new digital identity initiative by the EU (European Union Digital Identity - EUDI) is somewhat similar to what the EU was striving for with SEPA - back in 2014. Both are following the same goals of interoperability, laying a foundation and were/ are mandatory for member states. But where do these initiatives differ? Read more below! Remember 2014? A new acronym entered our lives - SEPA. The single euro payment area. Many wondered why this initiative was require

Summary: The European Union (EU) aims to strengthen its digital autonomy and reduce its dependence on foreign infrastructures that hundreds of millions of Europeans rely on every day. One area where this shift is especially visible is digital identity. Currently, there’s no unified European digital identity framework that works seamlessly across all EU Member States — but that’s about to change. The EU is developing two major initiatives: the European Digital Identity (EUDI)

The introduction of the digital euro is delayed. Now, for the first time, the European Parliament has presented a concrete timeline. On the journey toward the digital euro, Piero Cipollone and Fernando Navarrete are essentially sitting in the same boat – yet they’re steering in opposite directions. While Cipollone, a member of the European Central Bank (ECB)’s Executive Board, wants to set sail, Navarrete, the European Parliament’s rapporteur, is turning the bow into the wind

Zero-Knowledge Proofs ( ZKPs ) and Self-Sovereign Identity ( SSI ) are potent technologies that, when integrated, revolutionize online...

On Monday August 7, PayPal announced that it will launch a US dollar stablecoin, called PYUSD. This step is not surprising, because it...

Following our recent announcement of being awarded a grant from the Mina Foundation, we are excited to delve deeper into the advantages...

Berlin, June 08, 2023. Over the past few months, the team at etonec has worked hard to build a prototype for privacy-preserving and...