CBDC projects around the world have moved past white papers. More than 130 jurisdictions are now researching, building, piloting, or issuing central bank digital currencies, according to 2025 tracking by the Atlantic Council, BIS-linked surveys, and policy reviews. The headline number can mislead you, though. Only a small group of countries has live national CBDCs. The most meaningful activity is happening in large pilots, wholesale settlement trials, and cross-border platforms. If you want a structured way into this landscape, the Certified Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Expert program is a reasonable starting point before you dig into individual country cases.

The practical question is not whether CBDCs are being studied. They are. The better question is which CBDC projects around the world are actually processing value, testing real users, or changing payment infrastructure.

What Counts as a CBDC Project?

A central bank digital currency is digital money issued or backed by a central bank. It is not a stablecoin, a bank deposit, or a cryptoasset. In most designs, a CBDC is a direct sovereign monetary instrument, even when private banks or payment firms help distribute it.

Retail CBDC vs Wholesale CBDC

Retail CBDC: Used by individuals, merchants, and businesses for payments. Examples include the Sand Dollar, eNaira, JAM-DEX, and China's e-CNY pilot.
Wholesale CBDC: Used by banks and financial institutions for interbank payments, securities settlement, collateral movement, or cross-border liquidity.

This distinction matters. Retail CBDCs get public attention, but wholesale CBDCs may reach production sooner in advanced economies because they solve narrower problems with fewer consumer privacy concerns.

Global CBDC Activity in 2025 and 2026

Because so much of this activity now blends CBDCs with tokenized deposits and regulated stablecoins, many professionals studying these trackers pair their reading with a Certified Digital Assets Expert credential to keep that wider context in view.

Recent global trackers converge on one point. CBDC exploration is close to universal. A 2025 overview counted 137 countries with some form of CBDC work, while a U.S. Congressional brief citing the Atlantic Council reported 108 jurisdictions in research, pilot, or launch phases as of July 2025. Other surveys estimate that countries covering roughly 98 percent of global GDP are testing or developing CBDCs.

Live national rollouts remain rare. The IMF identifies three officially issued retail CBDCs used for domestic payments: the Bahamas' Sand Dollar, Nigeria's eNaira, and Jamaica's JAM-DEX. Some trackers classify the Eastern Caribbean DCash differently, which is why global launch counts vary.

That classification issue is not academic. If you are comparing CBDC projects around the world, check whether the tracker counts pilots, regional currency unions, limited launches, or full national issuance. Otherwise you will compare unlike systems.

Countries with Live Retail CBDCs

Bahamas: Sand Dollar

The Bahamas launched the Sand Dollar nationally in October 2020, making it one of the first live retail CBDCs. It was built partly to improve payment access across an island geography where cash logistics are expensive.

Usage is steady but modest. A 2026 update reported Sand Dollar transactions of roughly 2 million Bahamian dollars per month. That is real activity, not a laboratory demo, but it stays small beside traditional payment channels.

Nigeria: eNaira

Nigeria launched the eNaira in October 2021, one of the earliest major emerging-market CBDCs. By 2026, cumulative transaction value was reported at about 22 billion naira.

The hard lesson from Nigeria is simple. Issuance does not guarantee adoption. Merchant acceptance, wallet onboarding, public trust, and competition from existing mobile payments all matter. If a user already has a convenient bank app or a mobile money wallet, a CBDC must solve a specific problem. A central bank logo alone is not enough.

Jamaica: JAM-DEX

Jamaica launched JAM-DEX in July 2022 and has continued distribution through local financial institutions and merchants. By mid 2026, reported transaction activity reached around 300 million Jamaican dollars.

JAM-DEX shows a pattern seen in other live CBDCs. The system works, but scale takes time. Incentives can bring first use. Habit change is harder.

Large CBDC Pilots in Major Economies

China: e-CNY or Digital Yuan

China's e-CNY is the largest retail CBDC pilot by value processed. Large-scale trials began in April 2020 and have expanded across cities, retail scenarios, transit systems, e-commerce platforms, and public-sector payments.

By 2026, reported cumulative e-CNY pilot volume exceeded 7 trillion yuan. That makes it the most important live CBDC experiment to watch, even though any claim of a formal national legal tender rollout should be treated carefully unless confirmed by official policy sources.

The e-CNY also matters because it is being tested in cross-border settings, including links with mBridge. That puts China at the intersection of retail CBDC, wholesale settlement, and trade payment experimentation.

India: Digital Rupee or e-Rupee

India operates both wholesale and retail digital rupee pilots. The wholesale pilot began in November 2022, followed by retail trials involving banks, consumers, and merchants.

India's retail pilot has reportedly reached peaks above 1 million daily transactions. That is significant test scale. The key design challenge is integration with India's existing payment stack, especially UPI, which is already fast, cheap, and widely adopted. To be blunt, a retail CBDC in India must offer more than another QR payment option.

Brazil: Drex

Brazil's Drex project is one of the more interesting CBDC designs because it is not just a digital cash pilot. Drex focuses on tokenized deposits, programmable settlement, tokenized assets, and wholesale-style financial infrastructure. The pilot has been extended into 2026.

This is the right direction for Brazil. Drex is less about replacing Pix for everyday payments and more about building regulated tokenization rails for financial assets. That makes it a useful case study for professionals interested in tokenized finance.

Euro Area: Digital Euro

The European Central Bank entered a two-year preparation phase for a potential digital euro in October 2023. The work includes rulebook development, vendor selection, privacy design, offline functionality, and coordination with EU legislation.

As of the latest official-oriented assessments, the digital euro remains pre-launch. Some industry reports have claimed a 2026 launch, but formal trackers still describe the project as awaiting an issuance decision. For now, treat the digital euro as advanced preparation, not a live public CBDC.

United Kingdom: Digital Pound

The Bank of England has studied a digital pound and completed a public consultation process that began in 2023. The project remains in a design phase, with no pilot launch or final issuance decision.

The UK case highlights the political side of CBDCs. Privacy, bank deposits, access rules, and the role of commercial banks are not minor details. They determine whether a retail CBDC is acceptable to the public.

Wholesale and Cross-Border CBDC Projects to Watch

mBridge

Project mBridge, coordinated through the BIS Innovation Hub, is the most advanced multi-CBDC cross-border settlement platform. Participants include the central banks of China, Hong Kong, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.

By January 2026, mBridge had processed more than 55 billion U.S. dollars equivalent across roughly 4,000 transactions. That puts it ahead of most CBDC pilots in real settlement value. Its use cases include trade payments, wholesale settlement, and cross-border liquidity.

Project Dunbar

Project Dunbar involved Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, and South Africa. It demonstrated that banks in different jurisdictions could transact directly using domestic CBDCs on a shared platform.

The prototype did not become a global production network, but it answered a core technical question. Multi-CBDC settlement can work without every payment moving through traditional correspondent banking chains.

Project Icebreaker

Project Icebreaker, involving Sweden, Norway, Israel, and the BIS Nordic Innovation Hub, tested interoperability between retail CBDC systems. Its hub-and-spoke model routes cross-border payments through a common foreign exchange layer.

This is a practical design choice. Most countries will not run the same CBDC ledger, so interoperability will matter more than a single global platform.

Other Wholesale Pilots

Switzerland: Project Helvetia III tests wholesale tokenized Swiss franc settlement for securities markets.
Philippines: Project Agila focuses on wholesale CBDC use cases for interbank settlement.
South Africa: Project Khokha 2x explores large-value payments and securities settlement.

One detail that often trips teams in these pilots is reconciliation. A CBDC settlement leg may finalize in seconds, while the securities leg, compliance checks, or core banking batch process still follows older timing. The technology can be fast. The institution around it may not be. Engineers building and testing this kind of settlement logic often round out their skills with a general Tech Certification, since the underlying systems and API knowledge applies well beyond any one CBDC pilot.

Why Some CBDC Projects Slow Down or Stop

Not every CBDC proof of concept should become a national currency system. BIS and IMF research repeatedly warn that poor CBDC design can affect bank funding, privacy, financial stability, and payment competition.

Several projects have been paused or cancelled after early experimentation. That is not failure. It is evidence that central banks are doing what they should do: testing assumptions before changing monetary infrastructure.

The United States is the clearest policy contrast. A 2026 policy review states that the GENIUS Act, passed in July 2025, prohibits the Federal Reserve from issuing a general-purpose retail CBDC to the public. U.S. activity has instead centered on research, private-sector payment innovation, stablecoin policy, and possible wholesale experiments.

What CBDC Projects Mean for Blockchain and Digital Asset Professionals

If you work in blockchain, payments, compliance, or digital assets, CBDCs are worth studying for three reasons.

Tokenization is becoming institutional. Projects like Drex and Helvetia show how regulated tokenized money can support tokenized securities and deposits.
Interoperability is the real problem. mBridge, Dunbar, and Icebreaker all point to the same issue: domestic systems need shared rules for cross-border use.
Compliance is built into the design. CBDCs must handle AML controls, sanctions screening, transaction limits, privacy tiers, and auditability from day one.

For deeper study, Blockchain Council's Certified Blockchain Expert™ is a useful starting point for CBDC architecture and distributed ledger fundamentals. If your focus is digital money, stablecoins, and market structure, consider the Certified Cryptocurrency Expert™. Developers who want to understand smart contracts, token standards, and programmable settlement can look at Certified Blockchain Developer™ or Certified Smart Contract Developer™ as related learning paths.

Outlook: Where CBDC Projects Go Next

The next phase of CBDC projects around the world will not be one giant retail rollout. Expect a mixed path.

Wholesale CBDCs will likely advance first in securities settlement, collateral movement, and interbank payment systems.
Cross-border platforms such as mBridge will expand testing because they address a real pain point: slow and costly international settlement.
Retail CBDCs in advanced economies will move slowly due to privacy, banking-sector, and political concerns.
Emerging markets will keep testing retail CBDCs for inclusion and payment efficiency, but adoption will depend on merchant networks and user trust.

The countries leading today are not only the ones with live CBDCs. The Bahamas, Nigeria, and Jamaica proved issuance is possible. China and India are proving large-scale pilots can process serious volume. Brazil, Switzerland, and BIS-led projects are showing where wholesale CBDCs may create the strongest near-term value.

If you want to build expertise now, study both sides: retail payment design and wholesale tokenized settlement. Then map one CBDC pilot to its real infrastructure choices, such as wallet model, settlement finality, privacy tiering, and interoperability. That exercise will teach you more than reading another launch announcement. And since adoption stories like eNaira's show that issuance alone does not win users over, professionals working on the public-facing side of these rollouts often add a Marketing Certification to their toolkit, since driving real usage depends as much on communication and trust-building as it does on infrastructure.

FAQs

1. Which countries are leading CBDC projects around the world?

Countries and monetary authorities across Asia, Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and the Americas have researched or tested Central Bank Digital Currencies. Frequently discussed initiatives include China's digital yuan, India's digital rupee, the Bahamas' Sand Dollar, Nigeria's eNaira, Jamaica's JAM-DEX, and the European digital euro project. Leadership is difficult to rank because some jurisdictions have launched retail CBDCs while others focus on pilots, wholesale settlement, or research. Comparing project maturity and objectives is more useful than producing a single leaderboard.

2. Which countries have launched a CBDC?

A small number of jurisdictions have moved beyond experimentation to launch retail CBDCs, including the Bahamas with the Sand Dollar, Nigeria with the eNaira, and Jamaica with JAM-DEX. Other countries have conducted extensive pilots or remain in development and preparation stages. CBDC status can change as central banks expand, redesign, pause, or reassess projects, so current information should always be checked against official central-bank sources rather than recycled lists that age approximately as gracefully as airport sushi.

3. What is China's digital yuan or e-CNY project?

China's e-CNY, commonly called the digital yuan, is one of the world's most prominent large-scale retail CBDC initiatives. It has been tested and expanded across numerous locations and use cases, including consumer payments, transportation, government-related payments, and merchant transactions. The People's Bank of China has explored features including wallet-based access and offline functionality. The project is closely watched because China's enormous digital payments market provides an unusually large environment for studying CBDC technology and adoption.

4. What is India's Digital Rupee or e₹ project?

India's Digital Rupee, also known as the e₹, is a Central Bank Digital Currency initiative led by the Reserve Bank of India. India has pursued both retail and wholesale CBDC pilots, exploring applications involving consumer payments and institutional settlement. The project is particularly significant because India already has highly developed digital payment infrastructure, including UPI. Its development therefore provides an important case study of how a CBDC might coexist with efficient existing payment systems rather than simply replacing them.

5. What is the Digital Euro project?

The digital euro is a European Central Bank initiative exploring a digital form of central bank money for use across the euro area. Important design considerations include privacy, offline functionality, accessibility, payment acceptance, financial stability, and the role of banks and payment providers. The digital euro should not be treated as already launched simply because the project receives substantial attention. Its development involves technical preparation as well as political, legislative, and institutional decisions before any potential issuance.

6. What is the Bahamas Sand Dollar CBDC?

The Sand Dollar is the digital version of the Bahamian dollar issued by the Central Bank of The Bahamas. The Bahamas became one of the earliest jurisdictions to introduce a nationwide retail CBDC. The project was designed partly to improve access to financial services across an island geography where conventional banking infrastructure can be difficult and expensive to maintain. The Sand Dollar is frequently studied for lessons involving financial inclusion, wallet distribution, merchant acceptance, cybersecurity, and real-world CBDC adoption.

7. What is Nigeria's eNaira CBDC?

The eNaira is Nigeria's retail Central Bank Digital Currency, introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria. It has been positioned as a digital payment instrument that could support areas such as financial inclusion and payment efficiency. The project has also demonstrated one of the central challenges facing CBDCs: launching the infrastructure does not automatically guarantee widespread public adoption. The eNaira therefore provides useful lessons about user incentives, accessibility, merchant acceptance, trust, and competition from established payment alternatives.

8. What is Jamaica's JAM-DEX digital currency?

JAM-DEX is Jamaica's Central Bank Digital Currency and is issued through the Bank of Jamaica. It is intended to provide a digital form of sovereign money for domestic payments and forms part of Jamaica's efforts to modernize its payment infrastructure. The project offers useful insights into retail CBDC distribution, wallet ecosystems, consumer adoption, financial inclusion, and merchant participation. Like other launched CBDCs, its long-term significance depends on sustained practical usage rather than the technical accomplishment of issuance alone.

9. Which countries are testing retail CBDCs?

Retail CBDC research and pilot activity has occurred across numerous jurisdictions, with approaches changing as central banks move between research, experimentation, development, and policy evaluation. Major projects have included work in China, India, Europe, and several emerging markets. Retail pilots typically investigate consumer wallets, merchant payments, privacy, offline functionality, financial inclusion, and integration with existing payment networks. Because project stages change frequently, official central-bank publications are the best source for determining whether a particular jurisdiction is currently piloting, developing, or reconsidering a retail CBDC.

10. Which countries are exploring wholesale CBDCs?

Wholesale CBDC experimentation has involved numerous major central banks and financial centers, including projects associated with jurisdictions such as Singapore, Switzerland, France, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, and others. Wholesale initiatives generally focus on transactions between financial institutions rather than everyday consumer purchases. Areas of experimentation include interbank settlement, tokenized securities, delivery-versus-payment, foreign exchange, and cross-border transactions. Some jurisdictions may prioritize wholesale applications even when they remain cautious about issuing retail CBDCs.

11. What CBDC projects are taking place in the United States?

The United States has researched digital-dollar and wholesale digital-money concepts, but research or experimentation should not be confused with the launch of a retail U.S. CBDC. Discussions have involved the Federal Reserve, policymakers, researchers, and private-sector participants and have examined potential benefits, risks, privacy, financial stability, and payment-system implications. The political and legal environment surrounding a potential U.S. CBDC is significant, meaning any future development would depend on policy and legal decisions as well as technical feasibility.

12. What is the UK's digital pound project?

The Bank of England and HM Treasury have explored the possibility of a retail digital pound as a complement to existing forms of money. Work has examined architecture, privacy, intermediaries, payments functionality, and the potential effects on financial stability. A digital pound is not the same as cryptocurrency and would represent central bank money if ultimately issued. The UK project illustrates the lengthy research, consultation, design, and policy process that can precede an actual decision to introduce a CBDC.

13. Which Asian countries are leading CBDC development?

Asia is an important region for CBDC experimentation. China has conducted extensive e-CNY activity, while India has developed retail and wholesale Digital Rupee pilots. Hong Kong and Singapore have participated in significant wholesale, tokenization, and cross-border experiments, while other Asian central banks have researched their own models. The region is particularly important because of its large digital-payment markets, cross-border trade flows, fintech adoption, and interest in modernizing financial-market infrastructure.

14. Which Middle Eastern countries are exploring CBDCs?

Central banks in the Middle East have explored both domestic and cross-border digital currency applications. The United Arab Emirates has been particularly active in digital-currency and cross-border settlement experimentation, including collaborative projects. Saudi Arabia has also participated in earlier cross-border CBDC research. Other central banks in the region continue to evaluate digital-money infrastructure. These projects are important because cross-border trade, remittances, financial-market modernization, and payment efficiency can provide strong use cases for institutional digital settlement.

15. What are the most important cross-border CBDC projects?

Cross-border CBDC initiatives have explored whether digital central bank money can make international payments and foreign-exchange settlement faster, more transparent, and more efficient. Well-known experiments have included multi-jurisdiction projects involving central banks and institutions in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and other regions. These initiatives test interoperability, multi-currency settlement, distributed ledgers, and shared platforms. Their greatest challenge is not merely technical: different countries must coordinate legal, regulatory, governance, compliance, and monetary requirements.

16. Why are some countries moving faster on CBDCs than others?

CBDC development speed depends on each country's payment infrastructure, policy objectives, financial inclusion needs, technology capabilities, regulatory environment, and public demand. Countries with limited financial access may view CBDCs as a way to expand digital payments, while advanced economies may focus more heavily on resilience, privacy, competition, or tokenized financial markets. Some central banks conclude that existing instant-payment systems already solve many problems. Moving slowly can therefore represent deliberate policy rather than technological backwardness.

17. Why have some countries paused or reconsidered CBDC projects?

Central banks may pause or reconsider CBDCs when research suggests limited consumer demand, high implementation costs, unclear benefits, privacy concerns, financial-stability risks, or strong existing payment alternatives. Pilot results can also reveal that proposed designs need substantial revision. This is precisely why pilots exist. Discovering that a CBDC is unnecessary or that a particular model should change is a legitimate research outcome, despite humanity's peculiar habit of treating every cancelled technology project as evidence that somebody failed.

18. What can countries learn from existing CBDC projects?

Existing projects show that technology alone does not determine CBDC success. Central banks must consider consumer incentives, merchant acceptance, privacy, cybersecurity, financial inclusion, offline access, commercial-bank participation, interoperability, and operational resilience. Launched CBDCs also demonstrate the importance of measuring actual usage rather than simply registrations or wallet downloads. Future projects can use these lessons to design systems around specific economic and payment problems instead of assuming that digital issuance automatically creates public value.

19. How can businesses track CBDC projects around the world?

Businesses should monitor official publications from central banks, finance ministries, financial regulators, and international institutions such as the Bank for International Settlements and International Monetary Fund. Companies with cross-border operations may want to track CBDC developments in markets connected to their customers, suppliers, treasury activities, and payment flows. Relevant developments can affect payment acceptance, settlement, compliance, accounting, APIs, cybersecurity, and financial infrastructure, although the practical impact will differ substantially by jurisdiction.

20. Which CBDC projects will shape the future of digital money?

Projects most likely to influence the future include large retail experiments, wholesale settlement initiatives, cross-border multi-CBDC projects, and work involving tokenized financial markets. China's e-CNY, India's Digital Rupee, the European digital euro initiative, and experiments in major international financial centers remain particularly instructive, while launched CBDCs provide essential evidence about real-world adoption. Ultimately, the most influential projects may not be those that launch first, but those that demonstrate sustainable benefits in payments, settlement, resilience, inclusion, or financial-market efficiency.