ECB advances plan for Europe tokenised finance market

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ECB advances tokenised finance

Highlights

Tokenised traditional assets recorded on public blockchains in Europe rose from 4.7 billion euros in March 2025 to 23.3 billion euros in March 2026.
The Eurosystem will provide settlement for DLT transactions in central bank money and now accepts DLT-based marketable assets at European CSDs as eligible collateral.
European CSDs launch large-scale tokenisation initiatives, and lawmakers consider extending the DLT Pilot Regime and reviewing the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation.

ECB roadmap for tokenised market infrastructure

As reported by the ECB, Executive Board member Piero Cipollone says Europe is moving from strategy to implementation in developing a tokenised financial market built around distributed ledger technology and central bank money. In a speech in Frankfurt am Main on 26 August 2026, he says tokenisation can do more than speed up existing processes, because it can reorganise the financial value chain by bringing issuance, trading, clearing, settlement, custody and asset servicing into a shared digital environment.

Cipollone says this matters particularly in Europe, where capital markets remain fragmented despite recent progress. The EU has 31 central securities depositories, 14 central counterparties and 323 trading venues, while cross-border settlement remains limited and securities are still mostly held and settled within local depositories.

He says tokenised finance is now shifting globally from experimentation to early adoption as institutional players focus more on tokenising traditional financial instruments. Tokenised traditional assets recorded on public blockchains rise roughly fivefold between March 2025 and March 2026, from 4.7 billion euros at the end of the first quarter of 2025 to 23.3 billion euros at the end of the first quarter of 2026.

Implications for Europe’s capital markets

According to Cipollone, Europe has an opportunity to use tokenisation to bypass the inefficiencies of legacy systems if it builds an integrated market from the outset rather than allowing closed and incompatible platforms to multiply. He identifies three main risks, fragmentation across networks, loss of the monetary anchor if markets rely on private settlement assets, and external dependence on technology, governance or settlement arrangements controlled outside Europe.

The Eurosystem wants to provide settlement for DLT transactions in central bank money, which the ECB presents as a safe asset and a foundation for growth in tokenised finance. Cipollone says that approach should support a more integrated, competitive and innovative European payments and securities ecosystem, while also strengthening the euro’s global appeal.

He says European institutions are already developing tokenised bonds, deposits, collateral and settlement solutions, and European CSDs have announced large-scale tokenisation initiatives similar to moves in the U.S. The Eurosystem also starts accepting marketable assets issued through DLT-based services at European CSDs as eligible collateral, while EU lawmakers discuss extending and enhancing the DLT Pilot Regime and the European Commission reviews whether the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation needs targeted adjustments.

In our earlier article on World Liberty Financial’s USD1 stablecoin expansion, we covered the company’s push deeper into regulated financial services, including conditional approval for a national trust-bank charter that would bring issuance and custody in-house. We also noted how the stablecoin’s rapid growth and trading activity has drawn political scrutiny and conflict-of-interest questions linked to Trump-related disclosures and ownership ties.

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