ECB's Piero Cipollone Warns of Tokenization Fragmentation Without Digital Euro
Key Takeaways
- •ECB executive board member Piero Cipollone warned that other entities could provide alternatives to a digital euro if the central bank does not act, potentially weakening Europe's resilience and monetary sovereignty.
- •He said fragmentation across tokenization platforms could increase without a pan-European digital payment solution covering every type of day-to-day transaction.
- •Cipollone emphasized that the digital euro would not take over banks' role but would equip them with infrastructure to compete in the digital age and expand their own solutions.
- •The ECB has not decided whether to issue a digital euro but plans to conclude the legislative process by the end of 2026, followed by a 12-month pilot starting in the second half of 2027 and potential issuance in 2029.
- •The digital euro, first proposed in October 2020 as a CBDC to complement cash, has faced criticism that it could give EU officials the means to surveil or control residents' spending.
Piero Cipollone, a member of the European Central Bank's (ECB) executive board, has warned that other entities could provide alternatives if the central bank does not introduce a digital euro, a development he said could weaken Europe's "resilience and monetary sovereignty."
In remarks published by the ECB from a Tuesday MNI Connect webcast, Cipollone said that fragmentation across tokenization platforms could increase without a "pan-European digital payment solution that caters to every type of day-to-day transaction." Tokenization — representing money and assets as digital tokens on digital ledgers — has given rise to multiple platforms, and Cipollone argued the ECB's goal should be to create a digital euro exchangeable across banks for day-to-day transactions, giving Europeans a single interoperable payment rail rather than disconnected ones.
"Our objective is not to take over the role of banks," Cipollone said. "On the contrary, the digital euro would equip banks with the infrastructure need to compete in the digital age and help them expand the reach and use cases of their own solutions."
According to Cipollone, the ECB has not decided whether to issue a digital euro, but plans to conclude the legislative process by the end of 2026. Should the central bank move forward, it would run a 12-month pilot program starting in the second half of 2027, with the potential for issuance in 2029 — a sequence that makes the end-2026 legislative deadline the first checkpoint for whether the project advances.
The ECB first proposed introducing a digital euro in October 2020 as a central bank digital currency (CBDC) intended to complement cash as a digital payment option. Critics of the CBDC argue that the digital currency could give EU officials the means to surveil and potentially control residents' spending — a line of criticism that has accompanied the project since its 2020 proposal.
Cipollone said in a September 2025 speech that "the digital euro will ensure that all Europeans can pay at all times with a free, universally accepted digital means of payment, even in case of major disruptions."
For now, the open question his warning frames is which alternatives could emerge if the ECB does not proceed — and whether they could match the pan-European, cross-bank reach he attributes to a digital euro.
Source: Cointelegraph
