Daily Observation of Cryptocurrency Policy: The European Central Bank calls on merchants to join the digital euro pilot, while central banks from 19 countries collaborate to test full-scenario retail settlement

Scene Penetration: European Central Bank Widely Recruits Physical and E-commerce Merchants to Join

As the preparation for the digital euro progresses, the technical prototype is moving out of the laboratory and into real commercial environments.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has officially announced a call for qualified retailers across the eurozone to join the new digital euro pilot project. The core mission of this pilot is to place the test version of the digital euro in a real commercial acquiring environment, thoroughly testing its capacity and convenience in terms of underlying technical architecture, daily operational processes, and user experiences for both merchants and consumers, accumulating firsthand empirical data for potential future legal issuance.

Collaborative Assault: Employees from 19 National Central Banks Participate in Full Process "Live Drill"

To achieve maximum testing coverage while ensuring safety and control, this experiment has designed a rigorous collaborative mechanism:

• Multi-party Participation: The experiment is not only led by the ECB headquarters but also deeply involves 19 national central banks in the eurozone and the first batch of selected merchants, creating a cross-border, cross-institutional central bank digital network;

• Full Scenario Closed-loop Verification: Staff from the ECB and various national central banks will first serve as pioneer test users, conducting extreme tests on all core application scenarios of the digital euro in daily life, covering online transfers between individuals (P2P), offline payments in environments without internet (Offline), POS scanning payments in physical stores, e-commerce webpage shopping checkouts, and mobile wallet payments.

Strategic Depth: Defending Against Private Stablecoin Infiltration, Upholding European Payment Sovereignty

The acceleration of the retail-level digital euro pilot by the ECB is rooted in profound financial geopolitical and sovereign currency considerations.

In recent years, offshore stablecoins primarily pegged to the US dollar and traditional US card organizations have captured a significant market share in the European retail and cross-border payment systems. The ECB's Executive Board has repeatedly emphasized the need to create a public digital clearing channel that is pan-European, cost-effective, and fully controlled by Europe. The digital euro aims to prevent the European micro-payment ecosystem from being monopolized by foreign private giants by providing a digital cash experience equivalent to the legal tender, thereby defending the euro's status as the currency anchor for unified pricing and settlement in Europe.

Sovereign Digital Currency Moving from "Institutional Design" to "Eve of Implementation"

In light of the overall evolution of the European financial system in mid-September, with the ECB setting a timeline for the launch of the wholesale-level clearing system "Pontes" and the full recruitment of merchants for "live testing" of the retail-level digital euro, it indicates that the eurozone is building a "wholesale and retail dual-driven" closed-loop system for sovereign digital currency. With the release of real test data from the 19 national central banks and the first batch of merchants, the clearing performance of the digital euro and its legal currency refund and offline double-spending defense mechanisms will undergo substantial testing, as the traditional European payment network accelerates into a new era of digital sovereignty.

Source: https://bbx.com/ Cryptocurrency Concept Stock Information Database, compiled based on global listed company announcements and SEC/TSE disclosure documents from yesterday.