The ECB announced on January 27, 2026 that the Eurosystem will accept DLT-issued assets held in compliant central securities depositories as eligible collateral for monetary policy operations from March 30, 2026. This follows a two-track DLT strategy announced in July 2025.
Pontes: DLT Meets TARGET
The "Pontes" initiative (short-term track) creates bridges between DLT platforms and TARGET Services, enabling wholesale settlement of tokenised assets using central bank money. A pilot is targeted for Q3 2026. In 2024 exploratory work, 60 market participants executed over 200 transactions totalling EUR 1.6 billion across multiple DLT platforms.
Appia: Long-Term Vision
The "Appia" initiative (long-term track) envisions a fully integrated DLT ecosystem within the Eurosystem's settlement infrastructure, potentially replacing legacy components over time.
Collateral Acceptance
The collateral decision is immediately significant: it means bonds and other financial instruments issued on blockchain platforms can be pledged to the ECB for liquidity - the same as traditionally issued securities. This creates a direct economic incentive for financial institutions to issue on DLT platforms.
What This Means
The ECB is not just experimenting with DLT - it is integrating distributed ledger technology into the Eurosystem's core settlement infrastructure. Accepting DLT-issued collateral for monetary policy operations legitimises blockchain-based securities in a way no other central bank initiative has. For the European financial industry, this signals that tokenised wholesale markets are moving from pilot to production within the central banking framework.