The digital money of central bankers

This article analyses the institutionalization process of the digital euro currently in development by the European Central Bank. To this end, we conduct a systematic analysis of the communications about the digital euro published by the ECB and its representatives. The themes around which the institution primarily communicates and the elements of legitimization that it employs are thus identified. We show that the ECB has a particular way of framing the project and the monetary innovation that is to emerge from it. By comparing this approach to alternative projects promoted by civil society actors, we see that the ECB’s communication, which is essentially technical and anchored in economic – and particularly financial – concerns, tends to make the social and political implications of the digital euro project invisible. Alternative proposals, on the other hand, open the way for a digital euro with specific (and possibly diverse) purposes. While money, irrespective of its form, is first and foremost an institution supported by the legitimacy it commands and the trust placed in it, none of the projects formulated for the digital euro can claim to be the most legitimate. We discuss the practical and theoretical implications of this situation for the implementation of the digital euro project and for central bank governance.