Share this article
ECB Mulls Decentralized Settlement for Wholesale Financial Markets
Euro regulators are looking again at their centralized settlement systems as they explore central bank digital currencies.
Updated Apr 28, 2023, 2:16 p.m. Published Apr 28, 2023, 8:56 a.m.
The European Central Bank wants its centralized financial settlement systems to better interact with distributed ledger technology, as it seeks to keep pace with technological developments in financial markets.
The ECB is pondering whether to issue a retail central bank digital currency for use by regular traders and citizens, but it also wants to use blockchain technology in wholesale financial transactions.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
The central banks that use the euro currency, known collectively as the Eurosystem, are “to look into how wholesale financial transactions recorded on DLT platforms could be settled in central bank money,” according to a statement issued by the ECB on Friday. The ECB is convening an industry group to help, it said.
The announcement reflects mounting interest in the technology from traditional financial markets, including for post-trade infrastructure that completes deals struck in trading venues. Euroclear, a Brussels-based firm that specializes in clearing and settlement, is set to release a new platform for DLT-based bond trading shortly, and Forge, the crypto arm of French bank Societe Generale, has introduced the CoinVertible stablecoin (EURCV), pegged to the euro, to settle transactions that involve digital assets.
In remarks made to the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee on Monday, Fabio Panetta, a member of the ECB's executive board, said that “working to make the European payment and financial system more competitive … requires working on several fronts,” not just the retail digital euro.
“We already have a wholesale CBDC – a digital infrastructure that allows banks to make interbank payments,” Panetta said, citing the ECB’s system known as TARGET2. “We are now assessing whether the technology, which we use, the centralized technology operated by the Eurosystem, needs to be updated to be more easily interoperable with intermediaries that might be adopting distributed ledger technology.”
Read more: Bye-bye Brokers: EU Tries Stock Trading, the Web3 Way
More For You
KuCoin captured a record share of centralised exchange volume in 2025, with more than $1.25tn traded as its volumes grew faster than the wider crypto market.
What to know:
- KuCoin recorded over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume in 2025, equivalent to an average of roughly $114 billion per month, marking its strongest year on record.
- This performance translated into an all-time high share of centralised exchange volume, as KuCoin’s activity expanded faster than aggregate CEX volumes, which slowed during periods of lower market volatility.
- Spot and derivatives volumes were evenly split, each exceeding $500 billion for the year, signalling broad-based usage rather than reliance on a single product line.
- Altcoins accounted for the majority of trading activity, reinforcing KuCoin’s role as a primary liquidity venue beyond BTC and ETH at a time when majors saw more muted turnover.
- Even as overall crypto volumes softened mid-year, KuCoin maintained elevated baseline activity, indicating structurally higher user engagement rather than short-lived volume spikes.
More For You
A few Republicans have crypto's destiny in their hands at the SEC, CFTC
After holiday leadership shifts, the two U.S. markets regulators — the SEC and CFTC — are now run only by pro-crypto Republicans, with Congress still debating.
What to know:
- The crypto industry finally has two permanent, crypto-friendly chairmen at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and they have no Democratic pushback.
- The lack of fully stocked commissions at the market regulators is a big problem in the eyes of Senate Democrats negotiating the crypto market structure bill.
- The lone remaining Democrat, Caroline Crenshaw, left the SEC last week.
Top Stories
