Semaine 47
Chaque semaine, nous vous proposons en version intégrale un article BLOCKSTORIES, une plate-forme de référence pour les institutionnels concernant les cryptoactifs.
Cet article est extrait de leur newsletter hebdomadaire. Vous disposez d'un lien en bas d'article pour vous y abonner.
For several months, the ECB and the Eurosystem have been assessing which technological foundations could support a potential wholesale CBDC while preserving monetary sovereignty. According to internal notes reviewed by Blockstories, progress on market-led options has been limited, leading the ECB to increasingly examine the possibility of providing its own infrastructure rather than relying exclusively on private-sector solutions.
The strategic question
At Sibos in late September, ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone captured the dilemma directly: “Should we have one big ledger with central bank money, commercial bank money, tokenized deposits, stablecoins, and assets, or an ecosystem of interoperable ledgers? […] Those are very fundamental questions, because we will stay in this new world for a long time. So we’d better not mess it up from the beginning.”
Why it matters
The ECB fears that without a credible European-built foundation, foreign private-sector networks could become the default rails for European participants, raising long-term concerns over financial and monetary sovereignty.
To avoid this, the ECB initially encouraged European private actors to propose permissioned DLTs, aiming for a competitive landscape rather than dependence on a single vendor. These ledgers could host a wholesale CBDC if they met stringent oversight, security and governance requirements ensuring the Eurosystem retains control of the underlying infrastructure.
“From a governance standpoint, all options are on the table, including taking equity stakes in the entities operating these ledgers, as part of a broader ambition to explore a deeper public-private partnership,” says a source familiar with the matter.
One example of this market-driven approach is SWIAT, the German start-up developing “The Regulated Layer 1” together with ABN AMRO, DekaBank, DZ BANK, Natixis CIB and other banks.
Different options
Yet the number of credible, production-ready initiatives remains limited, and the expected plurality of options has not emerged. As a result, the ECB is now increasingly considering taking back the lead by proposing its own infrastructure, although “for now, the ECB doesn’t even want to raise the idea, fearing it would deter the market from developing its own solutions,” a source says.
The unified-ledger scenario : in this approach, the ECB and the Eurosystem would provide a unified infrastructure for market participants. The design remains unclear. As one source notes, “building a Layer 1 from scratch is extremely difficult today,” leaving open how such a platform could realistically be engineered.
Against this backdrop, internal discussions have intensified around the possibility of building an ECB-led solution by leveraging existing public networks rather than creating a fully proprietary stack.
“The benefit would be achieving seamless interoperability with the ecosystem that is currently the most active in terms of liquidity and technological progress. Bringing DeFi startups into the process could also help stimulate innovation needed to develop a sovereign infrastructure,” said one person close to the matter.
Blockstories, la plateforme de référence pour les institutionnels concernant les cryptoactifs.
Pour vous abonner :
Member discussion: