ECB's Cipollone: Tokenized Markets Cannot Scale Without Sovereign Central Bank Money — Pontes DLT Launching Q3 2026
ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone told the EU Parliament on March 24 that stablecoins and tokenized deposits alone cannot support Europe's tokenized financial markets — they require tokenized central bank money as a public settlement anchor. The Eurosystem's Pontes DLT solution will launch Q3 2026 for wholesale central bank money settlement on blockchain. Digital euro pilot applications opened in March, with selected PSPs notified in June and a 12-month pilot launching H2 2027. S&P Global reports growing political momentum for a parliamentary majority vote on digital euro adoption.