Croatia's oldest means of payment becomes its newest — a regulated euro stablecoin, backed 1:1 by the euro. Here is why that matters, and why today's system works against the local economy.
"Kuna" is the Croatian word for the pine marten. In the Middle Ages marten fur was money — the "marturina" tax was paid in pelts. The kuna has been a means of payment in these lands for a thousand years.
On 30 May 1994 the kuna became the official currency of the young Croatia. On the coins: a nightingale, a tuna, a bear.
On 1 January 2023 Croatia adopted the euro at a rate of 7.53450 kn = €1. The farewell was an emotional one.
Now the kuna comes back as a digital euro — the name people love, the value they count on: 1 KUNA = 1 EUR.
A stablecoin is a digital token whose value is pegged 1:1 to real money — here, to the euro. It is not speculation: for every token in circulation there is one euro in reserve, and you can redeem the token back into euros at par at any time. The difference from the number in your bank account? A stablecoin is programmable, transferable in a second, 24/7, without intermediaries — and transparent on a public chain.
Contrary to the textbook: when a bank grants a loan it creates new money — by crediting the borrower's account. Loans create deposits. It is estimated that around 97% of the money in circulation came into being exactly that way (Bank of England, 2014).
Three neighbours, one bank (foreign-owned). The brick was made locally, the money circulated between neighbours — but the interest permanently leaves the community.
Multiply that by thousands of loans and you see the scale of the outflow. The higher the rate and the longer the term, the more value leaves the community.
When credit decisions and profit accumulation are centralised outside the country, locally created value systematically leaves. Croatia's banking sector is almost entirely foreign-owned — and the profit travels to the parent company.
The largest banks in Croatia and where their profit travels. Domestic (state) ownership is the exception, not the rule.
| Bank | Parent | Ownership | Market share | Profit goes… |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zagrebačka banka | UniCredit | Italy | ~25.6% | ~€431m to parent |
| Privredna banka Zagreb (PBZ) | Intesa Sanpaolo | Italy | ~20.5% | ~€371m to parent |
| Erste & Steiermärkische | Erste Group | Austria | ~18.1% | ~€120m to parent |
| OTP banka | OTP Group | Hungary | ~10.1% | ~€75m to parent |
| Raiffeisenbank (RBA) | Raiffeisen | Austria | ~8.1% | ~€70m to parent |
| Hrvatska poštanska banka (HPB) | Republic of Croatia | Croatia | ~9.4% | stays in Croatia |
| Sector total | ~88.9% foreign-owned | ~€2bn out over 18 months | ||
Sources: Croatian National Bank / HUB, N1, Bloomberg Adria, Telegram, NHS. Figures rounded; they refer to 2024 profit / 2025 payouts and the 2023–2024 aggregate.
The interest and fees you pay your bank travel via Milan and Turin all the way to a Wall Street fund — and to a 460-year-old foundation.
Sources: UniCredit / Intesa Sanpaolo IR; simplywall.st; Wikipedia (Compagnia di San Paolo 1563, Cariplo 1823).
Taxpayers bailed out the banks, the state sold them for less than the bailout cost, and foreign owners have extracted profit ever since.
Sources: Croatian National Bank, State Agency for Deposit Insurance; inflation and S&P 500 values rounded to 2025/2026.
This is not about banks being "evil". It is about where liquidity accumulates — and who controls the monetary infrastructure.
The concrete face of the problem: when you collect a subscription or a donation, every intermediary takes a cut. On micro amounts that exceeds half.
platforms (Patreon 10%), card processing and currency conversion together eat a large share of a creator's revenue.
the value of the EU creator-economy segment (2025); up to €135bn by 2032.
a regulated entity takes on VAT and compliance instead of the creator — no VAT filings across 27 countries.
Sources: Patreon Help Center; Stripe; Goldman Sachs; BNP Paribas. Solana fee: solana.com.
The recipe is no secret — the regulatory framework (MiCA) is clear and the technology is open source. Five steps from euro to token.
The issuer must be a licensed e-money institution (or partner with one). A licence in one EU/EEA state gives passporting across the whole EU and SEPA.
One euro for every token. Funds are held segregated at a credit institution, in safe low-risk assets, with an independent audit and public attestations of backing.
A euro payment in → the contract mints a token; a redemption → the contract burns it. Compliance rules (KYC, limits, blacklists) are built into every transfer.
The token is tied to an IBAN: a SEPA payment to that IBAN automatically mints the token in the wallet; the exit returns euros over SEPA (ideally SEPA Instant).
Any holder can exchange the token for euros 1:1 at any time. That is a regulatory requirement — and the main source of trust.
The recipe is proven in production. EURe is a regulated euro stablecoin that has been running for years — airKUNA applies the same model in a Croatian and regional context.
EURe holds only ~€25m — about two millionths of all euro money in circulation. Yet that same euro, on-chain, travels for a fraction of a cent, settles in seconds and can be spent on a Visa card.
The home chain for EURe. A fee of ~$0.001–0.01 per transaction, ~5 s blocks; gas is paid in a stablecoin (xDAI), so the cost is predictable.
A self-custody Visa card that spends EURe directly at 80+ million Visa locations — the on-chain euro in real life.
All on-chain euro amounts to just ~€395m. The base is minimal, the capability proven — what is missing is a regional player.
Sources: CoinGecko / CoinMarketCap (EURe); ECB (euro M1/M3); Gnosis.io, Gnosisscan, Gnosis Pay.
Euro stablecoins are less than 1% of the global market, but they exploded after MiCA. The regulatory gap is closed, and the space for a regional player is wide open.
total stablecoin market capitalisation (ECB, Nov 2025); ~8% of the crypto market.
of the market is dollar-denominated — the euro segment is just ~€395m, leaving enormous headroom.
projected stablecoin market size by 2028 (ECB).
there is no dominant regional euro stablecoin. Whoever first connects SEPA and minting defines the standard.
Source: ECB Financial Stability Review 11/2025.
Reserves are held in interest-bearing, low-risk euro instruments. The yield on the reserve (treasury yield) is the primary source of revenue — and in a DAO model it can flow back into the community and local lending.
Illustrative, not an offer. Euro yields are lower than dollar yields.
A real Monerium IBAN (LHV), real transactions on Gnosis Chain. Open it on your phone and try it.
Croatia lost the kuna in 2023.
We are bringing it back — this time as a euro, on-chain, with the value staying home.
The concept is open and the technology is proven. The stablecoin is intended to be governed by the airKUNA DAO (in formation) — as a community public good. We are looking for partners, ethical banking partners and collaborators.
airKUNA