Qivalis nears Dutch EMI licence as CEO declares stablecoins reshaping trade finance
Key points
- Qivalis is close to receiving an EMI licence from the Dutch Central Bank and targets a live regulated euro stablecoin before the end of this year.
- The firm has onboarded 37 European banks in the past year and expanded from one employee to approximately 40 staff.
- CEO Jan-Oliver Sell cites real-world examples of East Africa-to-Kazakhstan trade settling entirely in stablecoins, with no fiat off-ramp, as evidence of a structural shift already under way.
- Sell argues that earlier blockchain trade finance projects such as R3 and Hyperledger addressed document workflows but lacked the on-chain payment leg that stablecoins now provide.
- Delays to the US Clarity Act are, on Sell's reading, extending Europe's regulatory head start and leaving recently formed US bank stablecoin consortia several years behind Qivalis on a credible go-live timeline.
European euro-pegged stablecoin issuer Qivalis is approaching a regulated go-live, with founder and chief executive Jan-Oliver Sell telling CoinDesk that the entire trade finance supply chain is migrating to stablecoins. The company has grown from a sole founder to roughly 40 staff in a year, onboarded 37 European banks as participants, and is in the final stages of securing an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) licence from the Dutch Central Bank (DNB), with a production launch targeted before the end of this year.
Sell’s core argument is that earlier distributed-ledger projects in trade finance, such as those led by R3 and Hyperledger, addressed the document layer but never connected the cash leg. Stablecoins close that gap, and the effect is already visible in corridors like East Africa to Central Asia, where, according to Sell, counterparties are settling entirely in stablecoins without converting back to fiat. He describes collateral rotation shrinking from days to minutes as a direct consequence, which he says structurally changes the economics of dedicated trade finance funds.
Sell also frames the competitive landscape as a currency pluralism story rather than a dollar-dominance story. His contention is that European, Japanese, and Korean institutions will ultimately prefer settlement in their own currency equivalents, creating demand for non-dollar stablecoins that neither Tether nor Circle currently anchors. He points to delays in the United States Clarity Act as extending Europe’s window, and suggests that bank consortia in the US starting stablecoin projects now are likely years behind Qivalis given the three-and-a-half years it took his own firm to reach this stage.