Onigiri Weekend Digest: Institutional Lens #2

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Good Morning.

To kick off our official partnership with Onigiri Capital (onigiri.vc), we’re recapping this week’s major developments shaping the global stablecoin and digital currency landscape.

Recap this Week's Headliners

SS #33 - EU Finance Ministers Agree on Roadmap for Digital Euro
SS #34 - CFTC Greenlights Stablecoins as Collateral for Derivatives Markets

Together, these milestones underscore regulatory momentum in Europe and growing institutional acceptance in U.S. financial markets.

As always, Onigiri Capital will unpack what these shifts mean for adoption pathways, infrastructure design, and the broader role of stablecoins in connecting traditional finance with digital assets.

You read and share. We listen and improve. Send us feedback at [email protected].

🍙Onigiri Take

This week’s headlines show how two major markets are advancing digital money from different directions. Europe is pushing the Digital Euro as a sovereign instrument to safeguard payment independence, while the U.S. is moving to institutionalize stablecoins through the CFTC’s recognition of their role as eligible collateral in derivatives markets. Together, these initiatives highlight a dual-track path to adoption: CBDCs led by states and stablecoins driven by markets.

Key Insights

• Strategic Sovereignty (EU): The Digital Euro is designed as a hedge against U.S. payment dominance, with holding caps and political oversight to prioritize stability.

• Institutional Greenlight (U.S.): The CFTC move embeds stablecoins into the trillion-dollar derivatives ecosystem, legitimizing compliant issuers and infrastructure.

• Asymmetric Timelines: Europe faces a slow, legislative-heavy rollout (no earlier than 2029), while U.S. pilots could see commercial adoption within 12–24 months.

• Complementary Layers: CBDCs and stablecoins are likely to coexist — sovereign settlement bases alongside programmable private money.

Our Take

• The Digital Euro is more about policy hedging than immediate market demand; its symbolic value outweighs its short-term utility.

• The CFTC initiative is immediately investable, creating opportunities for issuers, DLT infrastructure, and collateral management platforms.

• The overarching signal: digital assets are shifting from the periphery into sovereign and institutional market architecture. Compliance will be the required gateway to scale.

Winners & Losers: Institutional Outlook

Under the Hood: Policy Innovation by Necessity

Policy innovation in both Europe and the United States is being driven less by experimentation and more by necessity. For the European Union, the Digital Euro is a defensive response to reliance on U.S. card schemes and dollar-clearing infrastructure. It is framed not only as a technological step but also as a political instrument to safeguard European sovereignty in payments, particularly across borders. The roadmap reflects these priorities: ministerial oversight, holding caps to prevent bank disintermediation, and a cautious legislative process that makes a launch before 2029 unlikely.

The U.S., by contrast, is moving faster and more pragmatically. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has signaled its intention to integrate tokenized collateral — with stablecoins at the forefront — into derivatives markets. This is less about creating new money and more about fixing inefficiencies in capital markets, such as collateral mobility, intraday liquidity, and real-time settlement. In recognizing stablecoins as eligible collateral, the CFTC is embedding them into the operational core of trillion-dollar markets.

The divergence in timelines is clear. Europe’s centralized, politically negotiated approach may deliver sovereignty but with slower progress. The U.S. is advancing through pilots and regulatory consultations that could lead to adoption within 12–24 months. Both approaches show how innovation emerges under external pressure — geopolitical for Europe, infrastructural for the U.S.

For market participants, the lesson is that frameworks will not converge quickly, and interoperability will be a challenge. Cross-border flows will require harmonized standards and risk-sharing mechanisms. Yet institutional on-ramps are becoming clearer: in Europe through legislative guardrails, and in the U.S. through industry pilots. What unites both trajectories is the recognition that digital settlement layers are no longer peripheral but central to the resilience of global financial markets.

Stablecoin ≠ Crypto — It’s the New Dollar Infrastructure

Beyond crypto-native use, stablecoins are increasingly serving institutional functions. Policy moves this week highlight several pathways:

• Treasury & Collateral Ops: Corporates and FIs post tokenized USD stablecoin as eligible collateral to reduce margin call frictions and free trapped liquidity.

• Cross-Border Payables: EU corporates settle intra-EU and EU–non-EU invoices on compliant rails (CBDC/STABLE), reducing FX spreads and chargebacks.

• Intraday Liquidity Lines: Banks use stablecoins for intraday liquidity optimization across affiliates, aligning with CCP/FCM settlement windows.

• Programmable Escrow & Supplier Finance: Smart-contract escrow with milestone-based releases and real-time attestations lower disputes and DSO.

• Audit & Assurance Trails: Tokenized collateral with on-chain proofs shortens audit cycles and strengthens regulatory reporting.

Institutional Risks & Unknowns

1. Eligibility Criteria & Fragmentation (U.S.): How the CFTC defines “high-quality stablecoin” (issuer domicile, reserve composition, supervisory regime) will shape market concentration; fragmentation risk across agencies remains.

2. Privacy & Data Governance (EU): Digital Euro architecture must reconcile AML/CFT with user privacy—a misstep could dent adoption and politicize the rollout.

3. Bank Funding Dynamics. Holding limits mitigate run risk, but deposit migration to digital cash/coins still pressures bank NIMs in stress scenarios.

4. Operational Finality & CCP Risk: Bridging on-chain transfers to legal finality in CCP/FCM environments demands gold-standard reconciliation, SLAs, and failover playbooks.

5. Interoperability & Vendor Lock-In: Early integrations may hard-code to specific chains or custodians, creating switching-cost traps and resilience concerns.

6. Regulatory Timing Risk: EU timelines can slip; U.S. pilots need coordination with Treasury and any forthcoming stablecoin statute to avoid policy whiplash.

Onigiri Capital, a blockchain-focused investment fund with an initial target size of US$50 million, is launched by Saison Capital, the venture arm of Japan’s Credit Saison. Onigiri Capital is on a mission to chart the next chapter of finance and invest in seed and Series A blockchain startups in stablecoins, payments, RWAs, DeFi and financial infrastructure. The fund’s strategy emphasizes connecting startups in the US with Asia’s growing digital asset markets.

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Disclaimer: All the information presented in this publication and its affiliates is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or taken as financial, legal, investment, or any other form of advice.