alt Hacker NewsThis is the fourth attempt in two decades. Here is the short history of earlier attempts:
https://x.com/moo9000/status/2006304163404128289
The difference this time is that Digital Euro is forced by ECB and control (and deposits) are taken away from banks.
Replies
Let's be real: The difference this time is the open hostility from the US towards Europe.
It's now been about a month since a White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security advisor openly talked about/advocated for taking Greenland by force. POTUS was vague for a while.
Northern European nations sent like a hundred military officers to Greenland. POTUS then threatened those nations with, wait for it, tariffs.
Then the markets crashed and Rutte/Nato provided a face-saving de-escalation path.
The OP article itself explains the history
> The core problem has always been fragmentation. Each EU country developed its own domestic payment solution — Bizum in Spain, iDEAL in the Netherlands, Payconiq in Belgium, Girocard in Germany — but none could work across borders. A Belgian consumer buying from a Dutch retailer still needed Visa or Mastercard. National pride and competing banking interests repeatedly sabotaged attempts at unification.
> The network effect compounds the challenge. Merchants accept Visa and Mastercard because consumers carry them. Consumers carry them because merchants accept them. Breaking that loop requires either regulatory force or a critical mass of users large enough to make merchants care — which is precisely what the EuroPA deal attempts to deliver by connecting existing national user bases rather than building from scratch.