Bank of Italy Study Warns Ethereum Infrastructure Relies on ETH Price Stability

On 13 January 2026, a Bank of Italy paper examined Ethereum as critical financial infrastructure and explored what would happen if ETH lost its economic value. The study argues that a severe collapse in Ether's price could undermine validator incentives, degrade settlement reliability, and transmit stress to stablecoins and tokenized assets built on the network. It outlines a regulatory choice between restricting public blockchains in regulated finance or allowing their use with additional safeguards.