Bank of Italy signals stablecoin issuance: fiat currency anchoring becomes a shortcoming, multi-issuer model faces regulatory pressure

【Blockchain Rhythm】Significant signals came on January 21. The recent statements by Fabio Panetta, the Governor of the Bank of Italy, have attracted attention—he explicitly pointed out that in the traditional banking system, commercial bank money and central bank money are the true foundation of the monetary system, and stablecoins can only serve as a supplementary role, making it impossible to shake the existing financial order.

What is the logic behind this? Panetta believes that the stability of stablecoins fundamentally depends on their peg mechanism to fiat currency, which in fact becomes their bottleneck—because they cannot operate independently without fiat support, the space for stablecoins to operate independently within the financial system is severely compressed. In other words, no matter how stable stablecoins are, they are essentially proxies for fiat currency.

Against the backdrop of geopolitical polarization and the shifting global economic focus toward the technology sector, Panetta reminds the banking industry: payment and settlement have become the most core competitive battlefield for banks, and digital financial innovation is putting pressure on traditional banks.

More notably, the Bank of Italy remains highly cautious about multi-issuer stablecoins (i.e., stablecoins issued by different institutions across multiple jurisdictions). The Deputy Governor of the central bank has publicly warned that such stablecoins may pose legal, operational, and financial stability risks to the European Union, and therefore must be strictly controlled—only regions that meet the same regulatory standards can participate, and strict reserve requirements must be implemented. This means that advancing multi-issuer stablecoin schemes within the EU will face very high regulatory hurdles.