ECB Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel said on August 28 at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium that the European Central Bank should move central-bank money onto blockchain infrastructure to preserve its role at the core of the financial system and keep pace with tokenized finance. "To reap the full benefits, central banks need to go on-chain too," she said in prepared remarks, adding that this means bringing central-bank money into the tokenised environment and modernising the tools of policy implementation. She argued programmable distributed ledgers could modernize how the ECB implements monetary policy, manages collateral and provides liquidity, including differentiated interest rates and automated collateral requirements, while keeping central-bank money as the ultimate settlement foundation. The concept is limited to wholesale finance, is separate from the retail digital euro, would not create a crypto asset investors can buy, and does not yet include a decision on public blockchains. Schnabel’s core concern remains the mismatch in which tokenized assets move on ledgers while payment still runs through TARGET, creating confirmation friction; putting both legs in one programmable environment would allow atomic settlement. She positioned the shift as a defense against stablecoins that could erode central-bank money if policymakers fail to act, echoing a related May warning from ECB President Christine Lagarde. Schnabel outlined two possible architectures: a single European ledger on which central-bank money, private money and financial assets are all settled—illustrated by South Korea’s Project Hangang—or a network of multiple linked ledgers; the final design remains undecided. Next month the ECB will launch Pontes, set for September 2026, connecting distributed-ledger platforms to TARGET so tokenized assets can settle in central-bank money, with legal finality initially remaining with TARGET2 and later stages aiming to move finality onto a Eurosystem ledger with smart contracts and 24/7 operation. Longer-term Appia work is examining architecture, standards and the legal framework for a European tokenized-asset market, with a blueprint expected in 2028. The ECB has explored wholesale settlement on distributed ledgers for more than two years, with Eurosystem tests of blockchain-based wholesale transactions beginning in early 2024. On the retail side, the ECB on August 14 selected 36 payment service providers, including Revolut Bank, Stripe Technology Europe and Deutsche Bank, for a digital euro pilot due to start in the second half of 2027. The remarks remain advocacy from one board member rather than adopted ECB policy, and reporting does not confirm an implementation date for full on-chain central-bank settlement beyond Pontes’s planned start; near-term focus is Pontes participation, asset types and operational performance as a test for Appia design.