European Central Bank publishes Appia roadmap to shape a European tokenised wholesale ecosystem anchored in central bank money

The European Central Bank, on behalf of the Eurosystem, has published a roadmap for Appia, a strategic initiative intended to steer the development of a European tokenised financial ecosystem in which central bank money remains central. The initiative is designed to bring together the Eurosystem and public and private stakeholders to support integrated tokenised wholesale financial markets in Europe. The Eurosystem’s approach to tokenised wholesale central bank money is framed around two complementary initiatives: Pontes, a distributed ledger technology (DLT) solution planned for launch in the third quarter of 2026 to enable settlement in central bank money for DLT-based transactions, and Appia, which takes a longer-term, market-cooperative approach to exploring how a tokenised and DLT-based wholesale ecosystem could be designed. Work under the Appia roadmap is intended to inform the delivery of tokenised market infrastructures and services by both the market and the Eurosystem, including the gradual enhancement of Pontes, and will examine alternative DLT network configurations and the trade-offs between a single shared network and multiple interconnected networks, with common standards and European governance highlighted as key objectives. The Eurosystem plans to crystallise its vision in a blueprint to be published in 2028 and has invited stakeholder feedback and expressions of interest, publishing a feedback questionnaire alongside the roadmap.