The European Central Bank (ECB), the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), and the European Commission have established the European Tokenisation Standards Group (ETSG). The group is now inviting market participants to join by November 27, 2026. The initiative aims to address the extensive fragmentation in the tokenization sector by developing common standards.
The ETSG's work aligns with several EU initiatives, including the DLT Pilot Regime and the Market Integration and Supervision Package. The latter, proposed in December 2025, includes amendments requiring industry standards to prevent fragmentation in distributed ledger operations in post-trade processes.
Separately, the ECB has launched its Pontes DLT settlement solution and is working on the more ambitious Appia project. The first phase of the Appia roadmap involves developing standards and asset interoperability. The ETSG aims to deliver these standards by early 2028, in line with the Appia blueprint, which is also due the same year.