Tokenized Financial Markets in Europe Require Central Bank Money for Growth, Says ECB Executive

Tokenized deposits and stablecoins in Europe need the support of tokenized central bank money to effectively scale, according to Piero Cipollone, a member of the European Central Bank’s Executive Board. According to Cointelegraph, Cipollone emphasized the importance of a public settlement anchor during a speech at the House of the Euro in Brussels. He highlighted the Eurosystem’s distributed ledger technology (DLT) settlement initiative, Pontes, which aims to connect market DLT platforms with the Eurosystem’s TARGET Services, facilitating settlement in central bank money. Cipollone noted that without tokenized central bank money, sellers of tokenized securities might receive payments in assets they are uncomfortable holding due to price volatility or credit risk, which could hinder market scalability. The ECB plans to launch Pontes in the third quarter of 2026, enabling market participants to settle DLT-based transactions in central bank money. This initiative is part of the ECB’s broader Appia project, which aims to establish a blueprint for a European tokenized financial ecosystem by 2028. Cipollone also stressed the need for legal clarity and enhanced public-private cooperation to support Europe’s tokenized markets. He pointed out that one of Appia’s key components is an interoperability standard for assets, ensuring that tokenized assets can be transferred across different DLT platforms using compatible data formats and smart contract standards. Cipollone encouraged market infrastructure operators, banks, custodians, and technology providers to engage with the Appia roadmap and provide feedback to foster public-private partnerships. He also suggested that Europe might require a dedicated legal framework to facilitate the seamless issuance and transfer of tokenized assets across the region. While he acknowledged the European Commission’s proposal to extend the DLT Pilot Regime as a significant step, he warned that without a comprehensive tokenization framework, there is a risk of developing advanced settlement infrastructure on a fragmented regulatory basis, which could prevent the full realization of benefits. These remarks follow stablecoin issuer Circle’s recent feedback to the European Commission’s Market Integration Package, urging lawmakers to expand the DLT Pilot Regime and offer e-money token cash account services to authorized crypto-asset service providers.