Those remarks frame the urgency of a legislative path and the policy objective of anchoring day-to-day payments in central bank money in both online and offline settings.
The regulatory perimeter is already in place. The EU’s Markets in Crypto-assets Regulation, Regulation 2023/1114, entered into force in June 2023.
This staged regime gives EU authorities a harmonized platform to supervise euro-denominated tokens and service providers ahead of any CBDC launch.
Considering public chains implies a distribution model that could interface with existing wallets and tokenized assets while still enforcing scheme rules through intermediaries. Privacy, holding limits, and offline usability remain design constraints under ECB workstreams, and no architecture has been selected, as the central bank’s July documentation makes clear.
The FT’s reporting characterizes the exploration of Ethereum and Solana as a policy opening rather than a finalized choice, which aligns with the ECB’s technology-neutral posture today.
Governance and compliance would hinge on scheme rules and supervised intermediaries under MiCA, while technology selection would shape interoperability with tokenized deposits, securities, and stablecoins.
The policy turn that brings Ethereum and Solana into scope arrives as EU supervisors enforce MiCA on stablecoin issuers and service providers, and as the ECB refines privacy and offline parameters for a potential retail CBDC.
The assessment of public chains is now active, the legislative pathway remains the gating item, and no final technology or issuance decision has been taken today.
