When Ethereum Becomes Financial Infrastructure
-

Bank of Italy has explored a scenario few in crypto like to consider: what happens if Ether’s price falls to zero. In a new research paper, economist Claudia Biancotti treats Ethereum not as a speculative asset, but as critical financial infrastructure supporting payments, stablecoins, and tokenized assets.
The study reframes ETH price risk as infrastructure risk. Because Ethereum increasingly serves as a settlement layer for onchain finance, a collapse in the value of its native token could directly affect the reliability, speed, and finality of transactions that regulators and institutions depend on.