Research
Nearly every major economy is exploring CBDCs, but actual retail deployments have seen minimal public uptake, and the most advanced real-world development remains in wholesale applications — meaning the headline statistic of 146 countries masks a wide gap between research and meaningful deployment. The central unresolved tension is not whether CBDCs can be designed with privacy protections, but whether those protections will hold over time: liberal-democratic designers argue tiered anonymity can approximate cash-like confidentiality, while critics contend that once the surveillance architecture exists, institutional and political incentives make its expansion structurally likely. A design trilemma — that privacy, financial stability, and regulatory compliance cannot all be maximised simultaneously — is well-documented in specialist literature but almost entirely absent from public debate, as is the non-Western framing that treats CBDCs primarily as tools of monetary sovereignty and platform de-monopolisation rather than state surveillance.
It offers a high-level overview of their implications for payments, monetary policy and financial stability. The analysis of the committees reflects initial ...
Our flagship Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Tracker takes you inside the rapid evolution of money all over the world. The interactive database now ...
Thus, on 28 June 2023 the European Commission put forward a digital euro package. The digital euro package would establish a new, digital form of central bank ...
An offline digital euro: cash-like privacy levels. The details of your offline digital euro payments would only be known to you and the recipient. This ...
The People's Bank of China (PBOC) has released four rounds of CBDC (e-CNY) in chosen pilot cities and promoted e-CNY in various retail business scenarios and ...
CBDC has special aspects that may benefit financial inclusion, such as being a risk-free and widely acceptable form of digital money, ...
CBDCs built on digital identification could improve cross-border payments, and limit the risks of currency substitution. Multi-CBDC arrangements ...
A CBDC could spell doom for what few protections remain, because it would establish a direct line between each citizen's financial activity and the federal ...
CBDCs allow bureaucrats to quickly punish you for spreading wrongthink and “misinformation.” You can be fined, or your bank account can be ...
Many believe a CBDC can be a means to expand financial inclusion. One prominent proposal known as Fed Accounts—which has attracted support from ...
146 countries & currency unions, representing over 98% of global GDP, are exploring a CBDC. In May 2022 that number was only 87. There is a new high of 77 ...
Of the 93 central banks surveyed, 91% (85) were exploring either a retail CBDC, a wholesale CBDC or both. At an aggregate level, the exploration ...
This report examines the issuance of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) – the digital euro – from the perspective of the Eurosystem.
Project mBridge reached the minimum viable product (MVP) stage in mid-2024. The project aimed to explore a multi-central bank digital currency (CBDC) platform.
Central Bank of Nigeria identifies using the eNaira for government payments as part of a fresh strategy to boost take-up of its CBDC.
As at December 2023, personal wallets in use stood at 118,955, an expansion of 20 percent for the year to date. Moreover, SandDollars in ...
Initially conceived as a blockchain-based CBDC , the project was reportedly suspended in its original form by 2025. Media reports indicate it abandoned DLT to ...
The CBDC Tracker, which has already been accepted into the SXSW 2025 program, is a vital resource for monitoring the rise of central bank digital currencies.
The Cato Institute 2023 CBDC National Survey finds that few Americans—only 16%—support the adoption of a CBDC.
At the beginning of the March 2024 survey, we elicited awareness about the digital euro by asking respondents if they had ever heard about ...
In this Briefing, we examine what motivations, if any, central banks have identified for retail CBDCs. Although policy goals for a retail CBDC vary by country, Table 1 shows a few common motivations include promoting financial inclusion; enhancing payment system efficiency, competition, security, or resiliency; and improving cross-border payments. ... Sweden’s Riksbank has long been considering a retail CBDC and has identified three key motivations: payments access, resiliency, and competition. ... The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) believes that a well-designed retail CBDC could have future value in preserving the benefits of generally accessible public money and that a CBDC could mitigate risks to credit creation, financial stability, and monetary policy (MAS Economic Policy Group 2021). ... Several EMDEs have implemented CBDCs primarily to promote financial inclusion and improve their payments systems.
This paper explores how the design and implementation of CBDCs can help countries mitigate threats to individual liberties and human rights, as well as promote ... This paper explores how the design and implementation of CBDCs can help countries mitigate threats to individual liberties and human rights, as well as promote the equitable treatment of citizens, the protection of privacy, and citizens’ trust in central banks. The sound governance architecture of CBDC systems at the national and international level can further support these objectives.
This article aims to provide a domestic and international governance lens to understand China's CBDC practice: what are the major factors that affect China's ... China's CBDC strategy is influenced by several key factors. Perception underpins the design of e-CNY, while conception fosters innovation in CBDC. The alignment with China's preferences is steering its CBDC trajectory. Legitimacy is a crucial issue impacting the effectiveness of e-CNY, and institutional capacity will play a vital role in its implementation.
With hundreds of central banks engaged in some form of CBDC-related work, this paper explores how CBDCs—particularly retail. CBDCs—can help overcome persistent. With hundreds of central banks engaged in some form of CBDC-related work, this paper explores how CBDCs—particularly retail. CBDCs—can help overcome persistent.
The institutional lens reveals a struggle over monetary sovereignty that is continually undermined by the CBDC's dependence on private, largely ...
Based on the analysis of CBDC, it explores the potential nodes, ties and structure of a CBDC network, and then explores the approach of a CBDC network as ...
This Note explores the environmental implications of CBDC by comparing technical mechanisms and energy consumption within its distributed structure.
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