European Central Bank Launches Appia Roadmap for Tokenized Wholesale Finance, Targets 2028 Completion

The European Central Bank launched Appia, a strategic roadmap to develop a European tokenized wholesale financial ecosystem anchored by central bank money, with completion targeted for 2028, the ECB said. A complementary DLT-based settlement solution called Pontes is scheduled to launch in Q3 2026 to support central bank money settlement for blockchain-based transactions. The initiative builds on work by 64 market participants who conducted over 50 DLT trials in 2024 and are now moving from experimentation toward a formal, long-term strategy, according to the European Central Bank.