Schnabel urges on-chain central bank money while Bitcoin opens above 80,000 dollars
Isabel Schnabel, a member of the European Central Bank's Executive Board, argued at the Jackson Hole symposium on 28 August that central banks should issue tokenised reserves natively on programmable platforms and said stablecoin products cannot expand liquidity elastically under stress. Bitcoin opened the same day at 80,261.86 dollars, its highest opening price since 15 May.
Economics & Markets··Midday
Schnabel puts central bank money on-chain
Isabel Schnabel, a member of the European Central Bank's Executive Board, argued in a speech at the Jackson Hole symposium on 28 August that central banks should embrace distributed ledger technology and issue tokenised reserves natively on programmable platforms. Stablecoin products cannot replace central bank reserves, she said, because they cannot expand liquidity elastically under stress. The speech favours native issuance run through smart contracts over omnibus accounts held by private intermediaries or bridge solutions. Schnabel said Project Pontes, a Eurosystem-operated distributed ledger platform, launches next month with smart contracts to follow.[1]
Bitcoin posts its highest open since May
Bitcoin opened at 80,261.86 dollars on 28 August, 1.5 per cent above the previous day's opening and its highest opening price since 15 May. By 7.00 New York time it had slipped back to 79,560.02 dollars. Ether opened at 2,511.31 dollars, 0.2 per cent above the previous day, and eased to 2,505.68 dollars over the same hours. The week carried economic data, a large options expiry, the new Fed chair's first major speech, Nvidia's earnings and a rate decision three weeks away.[2]
Project Appia targets a longer-run token ecosystem
Schnabel said Project Appia is longer-term work on an integrated tokenised financial ecosystem. The choice between a single unified ledger and interoperable ledgers, she said, trades atomic settlement against innovation and resilience. Yahoo Finance data show Bitcoin crossing the 80,000 dollar threshold at the open before easing to 79,560.02 dollars by 7.00 New York time.[1], [2]
