The Bank of Italy has modeled what would happen to $ETH security and settlement capacity if the price of Ether fell to zero, treating the network as critical financial infrastructure rather than just a speculative crypto asset. In a new research paper titled “What if Ether Goes to Zero? How Market Risk Becomes Infrastructure Risk in Crypto,” Bank of Italy economist Claudia Biancotti examines how an extreme price shock in Ether (ETH) could affect Ethereum‑based financial services that rely on the network for transaction processing and settlement. Biancotti focuses on the link between validators’ economic incentives and the stability of the underlying blockchain used by stablecoins and other tokenized assets. The paper models how validators, who are rewarded in ETH, might respond if the token’s price collapsed and their rewards lost sufficient value. In that scenario, a portion of validators could rationally exit, Biancotti argues, which would reduce the total stake securing the network, slow block production, and weaken Ethereum’s ability to withstand certain attacks and guarantee the timely, final settlement of transactions. $ETH