the availability of a european safe asset could help banks reduce their excessive holdings of domestic sovereign bonds on their balance sheets. and we have a relevant experiment going on now, which should provide useful information on the pros and cons of a european safe asset. i am referring to the fact that the european commission will issue eur 800 billion worth of euro - denominated bonds in the coming years to finance the european recovery package, nextgenerationeu. the first tranche was very well received by the markets, subscribed by several multiples of the original offer. the funding experience the package could provide useful lessons and guidance for the design of a european safe asset. to conclude, we need to understand ever better both the lessons of covid - 19 and the structural trends in the economy and their impact on financial stability. i would coin the main message of my speech by paraphrasing james carville : “ it ’ s the resilience, smarty! ” – that i. e. resilience should indeed be the critical driver of financial sector polies. as far as the central banks are concerned, the biggest contribution they can make to the society is to deliver on their price stability mandate, which will also contribute to sustainable economic growth and broad - based, inclusive employment growth. i am confident that the outcome of the ecb ’ s monetary policy strategy review will enhance the effectiveness of our monetary policy and the attainment of price stability, and thus also enabling sustainable growth and full employment. thank you for your attention & let me wish you a productive conference! 1 esrb recommendation on intermediate objectives and instruments of macro - prudential policy ( esrb / 2013 / 1 ) 4 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches 2 imf, staff guidance note on macroprudential policy, november 2014. 3 simona malovana, martin hodula, zuzana rakovska, and josef bajzik, 2021, czech national bank survey on macroprudential and monetary policy, summary of the results, june 2021. 5 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches

to use as means of payment. even stablecoins, a more recent breed of private digital money, have turned out to be not so stable after all. 1 / 5 bis - central bankers'speeches regulators have been warning private investors about the risks involved, but strong returns tempted more and more of them to jump on the bandwagon during the upswing phase. the total market cap of crypto - assets reached a peak of close to usd 3 trillion in late 2021. it has since declined to less than usd 1 trillion during the market turmoil this year. as was to be expected, the sharp revaluations of crypto - assets have led to a number of casualties and heavy losses for many investors. some commentators have pinpointed the large - scale quantitative easing of central banks as the root cause for excesses in the crypto market. qe was a necessary response to the economic situation prevailing in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis in most advanced economies. central banks quickly reduced interest rates to near zero to help the economy recover. but as the policy rates reached the effective lower bound, more had to be done to boost the economy and meet the inflation target. that's where central bank purchases of longer - term financial assets, or qe, came in, together with other unconventional policies including forward guidance, negative interest rates, and funding for lending programmes. while there may still be no consensus on how qe works in theory, i think we can all agree that, in practice, it has proved an effective tool for easing financial conditions and providing economic stimulus when short interest rates are at their lower bound. since both the overall easing of financial conditions and the role of qe as a portfolio rebalancing channel have served to push up the demand for risky assets, it is no surprise that asset prices have developed favourably during the qe period. this applies to crypto - assets in particular, where price formation is highly speculative and fanned by popular misunderstanding of monetary economics and even conspiracy theories. however, given the high volatility of crypto - assets, it is apparent that monetary policy can only explain a small part of the overall movement in their value, while the bulk of this has to be attributed to other factors. overall, i am sure that the economic benefits of qe outweigh the costs. as martin wolf noted in his recent ft piece on the battle over monetary policy, occasional asset bubbles are preferable to mass unemployment! in