CBDC Tracker: Analyzing the Global Race for Central Bank Digital Currencies

Understanding the Atlantic Council CBDC Tracker

The CBDC tracker maintained by the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center has become the definitive resource for monitoring the global development of central bank digital currencies. Updated regularly by a dedicated research team, this interactive tool maps the progress of 137 countries and currency unions as they navigate the complex journey from conceptual research to full-scale digital currency deployment. For policymakers, financial analysts, and technology leaders, the tracker provides an unprecedented window into one of the most significant transformations in the history of monetary systems.

A central bank digital currency, or CBDC, is virtual money backed and issued by a central bank—the digital form of a country’s fiat currency that represents a direct claim on the central bank itself. Unlike decentralized cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or stablecoins pegged to assets, CBDCs carry the full faith and credit of sovereign governments. As the Atlantic Council’s tracker demonstrates, this distinction has motivated central banks worldwide to take the development of digital currencies seriously, recognizing that the future of money is fundamentally digital.

The tracker categorizes each country’s CBDC status across a spectrum: research, development, pilot, launched, cancelled, or inactive. This granular classification allows researchers and policymakers to understand not just which countries are exploring digital currencies, but precisely how advanced their efforts have become. Explore our interactive library for more in-depth analyses of global financial developments tracked by leading think tanks and research organizations.

Global CBDC Adoption: 137 Countries and Counting

The scale of global central bank digital currency exploration is staggering. According to the CBDC tracker data, 137 countries and currency unions—representing 98 percent of global GDP—are now actively exploring a CBDC. This represents a nearly fourfold increase from May 2020, when only 35 countries had begun investigating digital currency issuance. The acceleration reflects a growing consensus among central bankers that digital currencies are not merely an option but a strategic necessity for maintaining monetary sovereignty in an increasingly digital economy.

Of these 137 jurisdictions, 72 countries have entered what the tracker classifies as the advanced phase of exploration, encompassing development, pilot, or full launch stages. This means more than half of the exploring nations have moved beyond theoretical research into practical implementation. The geographic distribution spans every continent, with particularly strong activity in East Asia, the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, and Europe. Each region brings unique motivations: Caribbean nations seek financial inclusion, Asian economies pursue payment efficiency, and European countries aim to preserve monetary sovereignty against the proliferation of private digital currencies.

The data reveals a clear trend: emerging markets are disproportionately driving retail CBDC growth. Countries with large unbanked populations see CBDCs as a pathway to bringing millions of citizens into the formal financial system without requiring traditional banking infrastructure. Simultaneously, these nations view CBDCs as a response to the growing international proliferation of US dollar-backed stablecoins, which threaten to erode domestic monetary policy effectiveness. The tracker makes this dynamic visible through its real-time mapping of adoption phases across developing and developed economies alike.

Launched CBDCs: Bahamas, Jamaica, and Nigeria

Three countries have crossed the finish line in the race to launch a fully operational central bank digital currency: the Bahamas, Jamaica, and Nigeria. Each offers valuable lessons for the dozens of nations currently piloting their own digital currencies. The Bahamas launched the Sand Dollar in October 2020, making it the world’s first CBDC. Jamaica followed with JAM-DEX in 2022, and Nigeria introduced the eNaira in late 2021. All three countries share a common focus on expanding the domestic reach of their digital currencies to populations historically excluded from traditional banking services.

The Bahamian Sand Dollar was designed specifically to address the archipelago’s geographic challenges. With 700 islands spread across a vast area, maintaining physical banking infrastructure proved prohibitively expensive. The Sand Dollar enables residents on remote islands to access financial services through mobile devices, bypassing the need for bank branches entirely. The Central Bank of the Bahamas has reported steady adoption growth, though penetration rates remain modest compared to initial projections, highlighting the challenge of driving behavioral change even when infrastructure barriers are removed.

Nigeria’s eNaira has faced more complex challenges. Launched during a period of significant currency instability and cash shortages, the eNaira was initially met with low adoption rates despite aggressive government promotion. The Central Bank of Nigeria has since pivoted its strategy, integrating the eNaira with existing mobile money platforms and introducing merchant incentives. Jamaica’s JAM-DEX has taken a more measured approach, gradually onboarding financial institutions and building the payment acceptance network before pushing mass consumer adoption. These divergent strategies provide a rich laboratory for understanding what drives successful CBDC deployment in developing economies.

CBDC Pilot Programs Driving Digital Currency Innovation

The CBDC tracker reveals a record-breaking 49 active CBDC pilot programs worldwide, each testing different architectural approaches, use cases, and integration models. This explosion of pilot activity reflects a maturing understanding among central banks that theoretical research alone cannot answer the critical questions about scalability, privacy, security, and interoperability that determine whether a digital currency will succeed in practice. Pilots range from tightly controlled sandbox environments with limited participants to expansive real-world deployments involving millions of users.

Countries increasingly prefer a phased approach to piloting their CBDCs, using controlled environments like regulatory sandboxes to gradually test and scale implementation. This progressive rollout strategy allows central banks to assess technological resilience under real-world conditions, address privacy and security concerns iteratively, evaluate user adoption patterns, and ensure interoperability with existing financial systems before committing to a full launch. The approach also provides political cover: if a pilot reveals unforeseen problems, a central bank can adjust course without the reputational damage of a failed national launch.

The diversity of pilot approaches is remarkable. Some countries focus exclusively on retail CBDCs designed for everyday consumer transactions, while others prioritize wholesale CBDCs for interbank settlements. A growing number are testing both simultaneously, recognizing that retail and wholesale use cases require different technical architectures and regulatory frameworks. The tracker categorizes these distinctions, making it possible to compare pilot strategies across economies of similar size and development level. For a comprehensive look at how institutions are using digital tools to improve financial literacy, explore our interactive analysis collection.

China’s Digital Yuan: The World’s Largest CBDC Pilot

China’s digital yuan, officially known as e-CNY, maintains its position as the world’s largest CBDC pilot by every measurable metric. According to the Atlantic Council’s CBDC tracker, total transaction volume reached a staggering 7 trillion e-CNY—approximately 986 billion US dollars—across 17 provincial regions by June 2024. This figure represents nearly a fourfold increase from the 1.8 trillion yuan (253 billion USD) recorded by the People’s Bank of China just one year earlier, demonstrating explosive growth that far outpaces any other CBDC initiative globally.

The geographic and sectoral expansion of the digital yuan pilot has been systematic and deliberate. From its initial testing in just four cities during 2020, the e-CNY has expanded to encompass sectors as diverse as education, healthcare, tourism, transportation, and government services. The PBoC has partnered with major technology platforms including Alipay and WeChat Pay to integrate the digital yuan into existing payment ecosystems, reducing the friction that typically hampers new payment adoption. This strategy of building on established digital payment infrastructure rather than creating entirely new channels has proven effective in driving transaction volumes.

Beyond domestic adoption, China is strategically positioning the digital yuan as a tool for currency internationalization. The PBoC is promoting the e-CNY as part of a broader strategy for a multipolar currency system that reduces global dependence on the US dollar for international trade settlement. This geopolitical dimension elevates the digital yuan from a mere payment innovation to a strategic instrument of economic statecraft. The CBDC tracker captures this dynamic by tracking not only transaction volumes but also the international partnerships and cross-border projects that China is cultivating around its digital currency.

India’s e-Rupee and Emerging Market CBDC Growth

India has rapidly emerged as the second-largest CBDC pilot globally, with its digital rupee (e-rupee) demonstrating remarkable growth trajectories that signal the potential for CBDCs to achieve meaningful scale in large emerging economies. According to the tracker data, digital rupee in circulation rose to 10.16 billion INR (approximately 122 million USD) by March 2025, representing a 334 percent increase from 2.34 billion INR (28 million USD) in 2024. While still modest relative to India’s overall economy, this growth rate suggests accelerating momentum.

The Reserve Bank of India’s approach in 2025 encompasses both retail and wholesale CBDC expansion, with a particular emphasis on new use cases that address uniquely Indian financial challenges. Offline functionality is a critical priority, given that significant portions of India’s population live in areas with unreliable internet connectivity. By enabling e-rupee transactions without continuous network access, the RBI aims to extend digital currency benefits to rural communities that currently rely almost exclusively on cash. This offline capability also serves as a disaster resilience mechanism, ensuring payment systems remain functional during network disruptions.

India’s experience illustrates a broader trend visible in the CBDC tracker: emerging markets are innovating more aggressively with retail CBDC design than their developed-world counterparts. Countries including Brazil, Thailand, Kazakhstan, and South Africa are developing CBDC architectures that incorporate features like programmable payments, conditional transfers, and embedded compliance mechanisms. These innovations go beyond simply digitizing existing currency and instead reimagine what money can do when it becomes programmable. The implications for government benefit distribution, supply chain finance, and financial inclusion are profound.

The Digital Euro and Central Bank Digital Currency in Europe

The European Central Bank is advancing what it describes as a “global euro moment” as it pilots the digital euro, positioning this initiative as central to strengthening the euro’s international role in an era of increasing currency competition. The ECB’s approach differs markedly from the rapid deployment strategies seen in China and India: European policymakers have prioritized extensive public consultation, legislative framework development, and privacy-by-design architecture before committing to a launch timeline. This deliberate pace reflects both the complexity of implementing a CBDC across 20 eurozone member states and the political sensitivity of digital currency in Europe’s privacy-conscious regulatory environment.

The digital euro project enters a critical phase in 2025-2026 as the ECB moves from its investigation phase into preparation for potential issuance. Key design decisions are being finalized around transaction limits, privacy protections, and the role of commercial banks as intermediaries in the distribution of digital euros. The ECB has been explicit that the digital euro is intended to complement, not replace, physical cash, and that holding limits will prevent destabilizing shifts of deposits from commercial banks to central bank digital currency. These safeguards address one of the most frequently cited risks of CBDCs: the potential for bank disintermediation and the resulting impact on credit availability.

Beyond the eurozone, the United Kingdom’s Bank of England is progressing its own “digital pound” initiative, while Sweden’s Riksbank continues its long-running e-krona project. Switzerland, Norway, and Denmark are at various stages of CBDC research. The CBDC tracker maps this patchwork of European initiatives, revealing both the common themes—privacy, interoperability, financial stability—and the divergent approaches that reflect each country’s unique banking system and regulatory tradition. For more insights on how European financial institutions are adapting to digital transformation, browse our interactive library.

US Policy on CBDCs: An Outlier Among Central Banks

The United States occupies a singular position on the CBDC tracker map: it is the only major economy to have formally halted retail central bank digital currency development. In 2025, President Trump issued an executive order directing the cessation of all work on a retail CBDC, citing concerns about financial privacy, government surveillance, and the potential for a digital dollar to undermine the commercial banking system. This decision placed the US in stark contrast to virtually every other G20 nation, all of which are actively advancing CBDC programs at various stages of development.

The US position reflects deep ideological divisions about the appropriate role of government in the monetary system. Opponents of a US retail CBDC argue that it would give the federal government unprecedented visibility into citizens’ financial transactions, potentially enabling political targeting or social credit-style monitoring. Proponents counter that without a digital dollar, the US risks ceding monetary innovation leadership to China and other adversaries, potentially undermining the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. The Federal Reserve has largely remained above this political fray, maintaining a technically neutral stance while continuing research activities that do not conflict with the executive order.

Notably, the US has not withdrawn entirely from digital currency development. The country continues to participate actively in wholesale cross-border payments research through Project Agorá, a collaborative initiative with six other major central banks coordinated by the Bank for International Settlements. This distinction between retail and wholesale CBDCs is critical: the executive order targets consumer-facing digital currency, not the interbank settlement infrastructure that could modernize international payments without raising the same privacy concerns. The tracker reflects this nuanced position, classifying the US as inactive on retail CBDC while active in wholesale research.

Cross-Border CBDC Projects and Wholesale Digital Currency

One of the most dynamic areas captured by the CBDC tracker is the rapid expansion of cross-border wholesale digital currency projects. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the sweeping G7 sanctions response, the number of cross-border wholesale CBDC initiatives has more than doubled, reaching 13 active projects. This acceleration is not coincidental: the weaponization of the SWIFT financial messaging system demonstrated to many countries the strategic vulnerability of depending on Western-controlled payment infrastructure, catalyzing efforts to build alternative cross-border settlement mechanisms.

Project mBridge stands as the most geopolitically significant of these initiatives. Connecting banks in China, Thailand, the UAE, Hong Kong, and Saudi Arabia, mBridge enables direct cross-border settlement using CBDCs without routing through US dollar correspondent banking networks. In a notable development, mBridge is now managed directly by the participating central banks without involvement from the Bank for International Settlements, which had initially incubated the project. This transition to independent governance signals the participating nations’ intent to build payment infrastructure that operates entirely outside Western institutional oversight.

Other cross-border projects include Project Dunbar (involving Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, and South Africa), Project Jura (Switzerland and France), and Project Mariana (exploring automated market makers for foreign exchange using wholesale CBDCs). Each project tests different technological approaches to solving the fundamental challenges of cross-border settlement: currency conversion, time zone differences, regulatory compliance across jurisdictions, and transaction finality. The CBDC tracker’s comprehensive mapping of these initiatives reveals an emerging network of parallel payment systems that could fundamentally restructure international finance over the next decade.

The Future of CBDC Trackers and Global Digital Currency

As we look ahead, the Atlantic Council’s CBDC tracker will only grow in importance as the global digital currency landscape becomes more complex and consequential. Several trends visible in the current data point toward a transformative period in the coming years. The number of countries moving from research to pilot phases continues to accelerate, suggesting that by 2028, the majority of the world’s population will have access to some form of central bank digital currency. This transition will reshape not only payment systems but also monetary policy transmission, financial inclusion metrics, and the geopolitical balance of economic power.

The competitive dynamics between major CBDC programs are intensifying. The ECB’s digital euro, China’s e-CNY, and India’s e-rupee represent three distinct models for CBDC implementation—privacy-centric, scale-driven, and inclusion-focused respectively. How these models perform and evolve will influence the design choices of the scores of countries still in earlier development stages. Meanwhile, the US’s decision to halt retail CBDC work creates a vacuum that other nations are actively filling, potentially reshaping the dollar-centric architecture of international finance that has prevailed since Bretton Woods.

For organizations seeking to communicate the complexity of CBDC developments to diverse audiences, the challenge of making dense financial data accessible and engaging is paramount. The Atlantic Council’s tracker itself demonstrates the power of interactive visualization in making abstract monetary policy concepts tangible. Similarly, platforms that transform complex research into interactive experiences enable stakeholders across government, finance, and technology to engage meaningfully with the data that will shape the future of money. As CBDCs move from experimental pilots to foundational infrastructure, the ability to understand and communicate these developments will become a critical competency for every participant in the global financial system.