EURC

Circle announced Euro Coin on June 16, 2022, promising availability on Ethereum on June 30 under Circle LLC. The original reserve description pointed to euro deposits inside the US regulatory perimeter, beginning with Silvergate Bank.

On September 22, 2023, Circle retired the public names Euro Coin and EUROC in favor of EURC. It explicitly kept the existing token addresses, so the brand changed while balances and contract identities continued.

The deeper migration arrived on July 1, 2024. Circle LLC stopped issuing EURC and Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS became sole issuer. The French entity is an ACPR-licensed electronic money institution, and the current redemption policy also records an AMF crypto-asset service provider authorisation granted on April 24, 2026. A token born as Circle's euro counterpart to USDC had become an e-money claim governed by French law and MiCA.

Circle SAS states that every circulating EURC is matched by one euro or equivalent euro-denominated assets held with regulated financial institutions in segregated accounts for holders. The February 27, 2026 examination reported 393,662,772 EURC in circulation and EUR396,413,298 of reserve assets. It also excluded 34,629,046 Solana tokens that the implementation allowed but had not issued to holders. That reconciliation matters: raw onchain supply can include technical inventory that is not a circulating claim.

Backing does not turn EURC into an interest-bearing account. The MiCA white paper says reserve returns belong neither to token holders nor to the token, and EURC creates no equity in Circle. It also warns that EU deposit-guarantee and investor-compensation schemes do not cover the token. Segregating reserve assets from Circle SAS's other creditors protects a different boundary; it is not deposit insurance.

The white paper gives EURC holders a legal claim against Circle SAS at any time and at par value. Circle's July 2026 policy turns that broad right into a procedure. Non-retail holders need a Circle Mint redemption account. Retail holders can use a dedicated route, but must pass identity, sanctions, transaction-history, and asset-freeze checks and provide an EEA bank account with an IBAN capable of receiving SEPA payments. After the token deposit and successful verification, payment should normally take no more than five business days.

Those conditions expose the difference between moving a token and settling the claim. Onchain transfers can be irreversible, while the issuer can deny a restricted person, block an address, or surrender associated reserve assets under a valid order. In a MiCA recovery event, Circle SAS may also apply liquidity fees, daily redemption limits, or a last-resort suspension under regulatory oversight. The right is real, but its exercise runs through a regulated institution.

Circle's contract directory listed Avalanche, Base, Cronos, Ethereum, Plasma, Solana, Stellar, and World Chain on the review date. Each has an issuer-designated address or asset identifier. Their balances are intended to be fungible liabilities of Circle SAS, yet the chains do not merge into one ledger: settlement finality, outages, account models, and token controls come from each network. Circle's policy expressly excludes unofficial copies and wrappers from its support obligation.

The list is also a moving operational boundary. The MiCA white paper's technology section described five networks at its earlier snapshot and said new support would be added; the live directory now names eight. A wallet or exchange label is therefore insufficient. Users must verify the current Circle address on the chain they intend to use.

Circle's published EVM FiatToken design divides power among controlled roles. Minters create and destroy units, a pauser can stop transfers and issuance, a blacklister can immobilize addresses, an owner can reassign several roles, a rescuer can recover tokens trapped in the contract, and the proxy admin can replace implementation logic. These functions allow compliance response and software repair, but they also mean token operation is not governed by holders.

Solana and Stellar do not use the EVM proxy, so their exact mechanisms should not be inferred from Ethereum code. The shared fact is narrower: Circle selects supported implementations, maintains access-denial powers, and stands behind redemption on those recognized chains. EURC is programmable euros because a regulated issuer joins bank reserves to public ledgers; neither half works as described without the other.