# Appia **Appia** (after the Via Appia, the Roman road) is the [[European Central Bank]]'s long-term program for a tokenized European financial system (see [[Tokenized Assets]]) "where central bank money remains the anchor." It is the second track of the dual-track plan the ECB Governing Council approved on **July 1, 2025**. The first track, [[Pontes]], is the near-term settlement bridge that went live on September 21, 2026. > "With Appia, we are building a road from today's financial system to tomorrow's tokenised markets, firmly grounded in central bank money." > — [[Piero Cipollone]], ECB Executive Board member, March 11, 2026 ## Roadmap - **July 1, 2025:** dual-track plan approved - **March 11, 2026:** Eurosystem publishes the Appia roadmap - **Q3 2026:** [[Pontes]] launches as the first deliverable (went live September 21, 2026) - **2028:** Eurosystem to publish a comprehensive blueprint for the tokenized ecosystem Appia is wholesale-only, like Pontes. It concerns banks and market infrastructure, not consumers, and is separate from the retail [[Digital Euro]]. **How the two tracks relate:** the ECB describes Pontes as "the first initiative" of its tokenized-finance strategy and Appia as the parallel program of experimentation and analysis that will shape where that infrastructure ends up. Some news coverage describes Pontes as *part of* Appia, other coverage as a separate track. The ECB's own wording supports "two tracks of one strategy." ## See Also - [[Pontes]] — the near-term track, live since September 2026 - [[European Central Bank]] — the sponsor - [[Digital Euro]] — the separate retail project