MiCA One-Year Report Card: Euro Stablecoin Market Cap Doubles, but Traders Trapped in "Centralization Trap"

Euro stablecoins have experienced a long-awaited growth under the MiCA regulatory framework. Data shows that within 12 months of MiCA’s official implementation in 2024, the market capitalization of major euro stablecoins increased by over 100% year-on-year, reaching nearly $500 million by mid-2025, with monthly trading volume soaring from less than $400 million to $3.8 billion. However, behind this impressive performance lies a problem that traders often overlook: market cap growth does not equate to improved liquidity, and the key factors that determine execution prices are still firmly controlled by a few exchanges.

The “Market Share Growth” Trap Driven by Regulation

The Truth Behind the Doubling of Market Cap

After MiCA clarified compliance thresholds, exchanges focused on delisting non-compliant products, leading to a rapid increase in the market share of compliant euro stablecoins, which once exceeded 90%. This appears to be healthy market development, but data reveals another reality: the overall weekly trading volume of euro stablecoins has not returned to historical highs. In other words, “market share growth” is more a result of market restructuring and the exit of non-compliant products than genuine new demand.

Overlooked Liquidity Concentration Issues

Although the total market cap of euro stablecoins is growing, the liquidity supporting these trades is highly unevenly distributed:

The consequences of this high concentration are straightforward: leading exchanges provide significantly better execution quality than other platforms, but users trading on long-tail exchanges still face higher costs.

Exchange Choice Determines Your Execution Price

The Same Trading Pair, Different Costs

For bitcoin and ethereum trading against euro, improvements in execution quality mainly stem from highly concentrated liquidity, not the prosperity of stablecoins themselves. The difference in market depth is especially evident: quality platforms can handle large trades without significantly impacting prices, whereas other platforms still have high execution costs.

This presents a real issue: platforms with active stablecoin trading are not necessarily the best for spot execution quality. Some exchanges have high euro stablecoin trading volumes, yet the spreads for BTC-EUR or ETH-EUR remain wide. This “trading venue gap” is a risk many traders overlook.

The True Value of Euro Stablecoins Is Overestimated

The real value of euro stablecoins lies in reducing friction in fund transfers and cross-platform rebalancing, especially when bank transfers are limited or during non-working hours. However, they do not automatically improve slippage for all BTC-EUR or ETH-EUR trading pairs. In other words, holding compliant stablecoins does not guarantee the best execution prices.

Insights for Traders

In its first year, MiCA has indeed achieved regulatory goals: clearer rules, more compliant products, and renewed scalability for euro stablecoins. But for traders, the improvement in European cryptocurrency liquidity seems more concentrated in a few “habitable islands” rather than a comprehensive upgrade.

When choosing an exchange, focus not only on the availability of stablecoins but also on:

• The liquidity depth on your frequently used trading pairs
• Whether the bid-ask spreads are within industry averages
• The impact cost of large orders
• Whether the platform actively participates in euro liquidity competition

Summary

MiCA has indeed promoted the standardization of the European crypto market, but “market cap growth” and “liquidity improvement” are two different things. The doubling of euro stablecoin market cap is real, but it mainly reflects market restructuring rather than demand explosion. What truly influences your execution price remains the choice of exchange, market depth, and liquidity distribution—not just the stablecoin market cap growth.

At this stage, savvy traders should avoid being fooled by surface data, and instead deeply understand the actual execution quality of their preferred platforms. Regulatory success does not equal market maturity, and liquidity concentration also means risk concentration.