A CBDC is a digital form of legal tender issued directly by a central bank, which makes it a direct liability of that institution rather than of any private company. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) states plainly that "CBDCs are a direct liability of the central bank and as such do not carry any credit risk"CITE:E1. That single design choice is what separates a CBDC from a stablecoin or a cryptocurrency: both of the latter are liabilities of a private issuer, not of a state, and neither qualifies as legal tenderCITE:E1.
Most of the world's central banks are studying a CBDC, but almost none have actually issued one. In a 2024 survey of 93 central banks, the BIS found that 91% — 85 institutions — were exploring a retail CBDC, a wholesale CBDC, or both, and that wholesale projects (bank-to-bank settlement) were generally further along than retail projects (public-facing digital cash)CITE:E2. Zooming out to the full policy landscape, the Atlantic Council's CBDC Tracker counts 146 countries and currency unions, representing more than 98% of global GDP, that are exploring a CBDC as of May 2026CITE:E3. Yet of all those, only three countries have moved from exploration to a full launch: the Bahamas, Jamaica, and NigeriaCITE:E3.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Central banks exploring a CBDC (2024 survey) | 91% of 93 surveyed (85 banks) | BISCITE:E2 |
| Countries/currency unions exploring a CBDC | 146 (>98% of global GDP) | Atlantic CouncilCITE:E3 |
| Countries with a CBDC fully launched | 3 — Bahamas, Jamaica, Nigeria | Atlantic CouncilCITE:E3 |
| e-CNY cumulative transactions (through Dec 2025) | 3.4 billion+ | Atlantic Council / PBoCCITE:E4 |
| e-CNY cumulative transaction value (through Dec 2025) | 16.7 trillion renminbi ($2.3 trillion) | Atlantic Council / PBoCCITE:E4 |
| Project mBridge participating central banks | 5 | BISCITE:E6 |
China's e-CNY is the largest CBDC pilot running anywhere, measured by transaction volume. By December 2025, retail e-CNY had processed more than 3.4 billion transactions worth roughly 16.7 trillion renminbi, about $2.3 trillionCITE:E4. Those figures are cumulative totals built up over the life of the pilot rather than a single year's flow, and e-CNY itself remains a pilot program — it has not been converted into a fully issued, nationwide currencyCITE:E4.
Whether a CBDC can be programmed to restrict how or where money is spent is one of the technology's most contested questions, and the European Central Bank (ECB) has taken a public stance against it. The ECB states that "the digital euro would never be programmable money, but it could facilitate conditional payments," and that its design means "the Eurosystem would not be able to identify users making or receiving payments, thereby protecting their personal data"CITE:E5. That commitment is the ECB's direct answer to the surveillance concern that shadows CBDC projects generally: a design in which the issuing central bank cannot see who is transacting with whomCITE:E5.
CBDCs have become geopolitical infrastructure as much as monetary tools, and Project mBridge is the clearest example. The multilateral CBDC platform — built by the People's Bank of China's Digital Currency Institute together with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the Bank of Thailand, the UAE central bank, and the Saudi central bank — reached minimum viable product (MVP) stage in mid-2024CITE:E6. The BIS then announced in October 2024 that it was handing the project over to its five partner central banks to runCITE:E6. The United States has taken the opposite path: on January 23, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order, which states that "except to the extent required by law, agencies are hereby prohibited from undertaking any action to establish, issue, or promote CBDCs within the jurisdiction of the United States or abroad"CITE:E7. That order effectively rules out a retail "digital dollar" under current US policyCITE:E7.
The numbers point to a split between exploration and commitment. Nearly all central banks surveyed by the BIS — 91% of 93 — are actively studying a CBDC, and 146 countries and currency unions covering over 98% of global GDP are engaged in some form of work on one, yet only three have actually completed a launchCITE:E2CITE:E3. China sits at the far end of that spectrum in scale, with e-CNY's 3.4 billion cumulative transactions and 16.7 trillion renminbi in value, while still formally calling it a pilotCITE:E4. The ECB and the United States sit at opposite ends on intent: the ECB is engineering privacy protections into a digital euro it has not yet issued, while the US administration has moved to block federal agencies from issuing a CBDC at allCITE:E5CITE:E7. Project mBridge, now run directly by its five founding central banks after the BIS's October 2024 handover, is the one initiative in the evidence that points toward CBDCs being used for cross-border settlement outside a single dominant currency systemCITE:E6.
A CBDC is a digital form of legal tender issued directly by a central bank, which makes it a direct liability of that institution rather than of any private com…
Most of the world's central banks are studying a CBDC, but almost none have actually issued one.
China's e-CNY is the largest CBDC pilot running anywhere, measured by transaction volume. By December 2025, retail e-CNY had processed more than 3.
Whether a CBDC can be programmed to restrict how or where money is spent is one of the technology's most contested questions, and the European Central Bank (ECB…
The gap in this data is the story: 91% of surveyed central banks are exploring a CBDC and 146 countries are on record doing so, but only three have actually launched one, which suggests the holdup isn't technical capability so much as unresolved questions about privacy design and monetary control. China's e-CNY shows what happens when a central bank optimizes for scale first — 3.4 billion transactions and counting, still labeled a pilot — while the ECB is doing the opposite, engineering non-identifiability into the digital euro before it ever launches, and the US has simply opted out by executive order. The variable worth watching next is Project mBridge: now that the BIS has handed it to its five founding central banks rather than running it centrally, whether that group expands membership or transaction volume will show whether mBridge becomes real cross-border settlement infrastructure or stays a five-country technical exercise.
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