currencies would instead preserve the use of public money for digital retail payments. by offering a digital, risk - free common denominator, a central bank digital currency would facilitate convertibility among different forms of private digital money. it would thus preserve the singleness of money and protect monetary sovereignty. the ecb is working on a digital euro precisely for these reasons. to preserve its crucial role, public money must also continue to be used as a settlement asset for wholesale financial transactions. the eurosystem currently provides settlement in central bank money for wholesale transactions with its target services. and we are exploring what would happen if new technologies were to be widely adopted by the financial industry. whether such a scenario will materialise is uncertain, but we must be ready to respond if it does. our response may include making central bank money available for wholesale transactions on one or more distributed ledger technology platforms, or creating a bridge between market dlt platforms and existing central bank infrastructures. by ensuring that the role of central bank money as the anchor of the payment system is preserved for both retail and wholesale transactions, central banks will safeguard the trust on which private forms of money ultimately depend. conclusion let me conclude. born in the depths of the global financial crisis, crypto - assets were portrayed as a generational phenomenon, promising to bring about radical change in how we pay, save and invest. instead, they have become the bubble of a generation. it is now obvious to everyone that the promise of easy crypto - money and high returns was a bubble doomed to burst. it turns out that crypto - assets are not money. many are just a new way of gambling. there is an urgent need globally for regulation to protect consumers from the risks of crypto - assets, define minimum requirements for crypto firms ’ risk management and corporate governance, and reduce the run and contagion risks of stablecoins. we should also tax crypto - assets according to their social costs. but regulation will not turn risky instruments into safe money. instead, a stable digital finance ecosystem requires well - supervised intermediaries and a risk - free and dependable digital settlement asset, which only digital central bank money can provide. annexes 7 december 2022 slides english 1. i would like to thank cyril max neumann, patrick papsdorf and jean - francois jamet for their help in preparing this speech and alessandro giovannini, antonella pellicani, pedro bento pereira da silva, mirjam pl

a plunge in production and trade. the shockwaves finally reached the fiscal sector and have led to a – sometimes huge – increase in deficits and in public debt. this was particularly true for countries which had recorded large imbalances before the crisis and which, in addition, had structural problems to struggle with. often, these were problems that had been present for some time but had remained hidden in the periods of easy money, credit booms and increasing indebtedness. this short and necessarily sketchy and incomplete account suggests that there have been weaknesses and failures in at least four areas of economic governance : the governance of the financial sector, of national economic structures, cross - country balances and fiscal policies. we need reforms in all four of these areas. this is important to stress since the events of the recent months have put fiscal problems and the role of the government to the fore. it goes without saying that national and supranational bodies did not work in the most efficient way before and during the crisis and that it is necessary to improve their functioning. on the other hand, however, this is only one field that calls for reform efforts. ladies and gentlemen, we have already seen some reform progress over recent months. i do not need to give you a detailed account of all the institutional adaptations and innovations which have been put into place recently or which are scheduled to be implemented in the near future. first, because most of you will have followed these events closely and second, because i am sure that we will hear much more about them in the course of this conference. i just want to mention some of the innovations that are related to all four areas that i identified before as the crucial targets of reform : the modification of the stability and growth pact ( to allow for a higher degree of automatism of – and a stricter adherence to – the rules ) ; the euro plus pact, which will improve the coordination of national economic policies and help identify macroeconomic imbalances ; the set - up of new supervisory authorities for securities, banking and insurance ; and the establishment of the european systemic risk board and the european stability mechanism to monitor macrofinancial stability and manage future sovereign debt crises. at the same time we have also seen that some countries have tackled their own specific structural deficiencies to be better able to cope with the current crisis and with future economic shocks. bis central bankers ’ speeches the biggest challenge for this new institutional architecture is to implement improvements in monitoring and coordination with