Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) entered 2026 in a strange split. Three retail CBDCs are live and circulating (Bahamas, Jamaica, Nigeria). One wholesale-and-retail giant, China's e-CNY, has crossed 16 trillion yuan in cumulative transactions. The eurozone is finishing a multi-year prep phase and moving toward a 2026 issuance decision. And the United States, after the GENIUS Act was signed into law on July 18, 2025, has explicitly banned the Federal Reserve from issuing a retail CBDC. According to the Atlantic Council CBDC Tracker, 134 countries representing 98% of global GDP are now exploring a CBDC in some form, up from 35 in 2020.
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Here is what actually changed in the last twelve months, country by country, and what to watch for the rest of 2026.
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A central bank digital currency is a digital liability of a central bank, issued directly to the public (retail CBDC) or to financial institutions (wholesale CBDC). Unlike a stablecoin, which is issued by a private company and backed by reserves, a CBDC is base money. It sits on the central bank's balance sheet, the same way physical cash does.
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For background on the private-sector alternative, see how stablecoins work and the history of stablecoins.
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Source: Atlantic Council CBDC Tracker, Bank for International Settlements, individual central bank disclosures (May 2026).
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The People's Bank of China continues to run the largest retail CBDC pilot on earth. Cumulative e-CNY transactions surpassed 16.7 trillion yuan (roughly US$2.3 trillion) by November 2025, an 800%+ jump from 2023 levels per PBOC data. Pilots now cover 26 cities and several large provincial capitals. The e-CNY is integrated with WeChat Pay and Alipay, accepted across major retail chains, and used to pay public-sector wages in several pilot zones.
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Notably, China has expanded e-CNY use in cross-border payments through Project mBridge, which links the central banks of China, Hong Kong, the UAE, Thailand, and Saudi Arabia (which joined in 2024). The BIS Innovation Hub formally exited mBridge in 2024, and the project has continued without BIS involvement.
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The European Central Bank concluded its two-year preparation phase in October 2025. That phase finalized the rulebook, selected potential infrastructure providers, and ran consumer-facing experiments. The Governing Council is now in the "decision phase," with a formal go or no-go vote expected in late 2026.
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The political situation is more contested than the technical one. The European Parliament is still negotiating the digital euro regulation. Concerns center on privacy thresholds, holding limits (the ECB has floated €3,000 per person), and the role of commercial banks as intermediaries. Even if the Governing Council approves issuance in 2026, the ECB has said a live digital euro is at least two to three years from circulation.
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The Bank of England and HM Treasury published their joint consultation response in early 2024, then opened a deeper design phase running through 2025 and 2026. The Bank of England has been explicit that no decision to build has been taken. A separate consultation on the underlying ledger model closed in late 2025, and a progress update is expected from the Bank of England in mid-2026.
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Unlike the eurozone, the UK has signaled that any digital pound would coexist with cash indefinitely, and the holding cap under discussion is £10,000 to £20,000 per individual.
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The three retail CBDCs that have actually launched all share a similar story: real but small. The eNaira has been live since October 2021. The Central Bank of Nigeria reported approximately ₦22 billion in transactions through 2025, with adoption concentrated in airdrops and government cash transfers rather than organic retail use.
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The Bahamas Sand Dollar, launched in October 2020, is the oldest live retail CBDC. The Central Bank of The Bahamas reports monthly transaction volume of roughly B$2 million, primarily in island merchants and remittances within the archipelago. JAM-DEX in Jamaica, launched in July 2022, has been distributed through a J$2,500 sign-up incentive and is accepted at chain retailers and small businesses across the island, but daily volume remains modest.
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The pattern across all three: launching a CBDC is technically achievable; getting citizens and merchants to use it instead of incumbent rails is the actual hard part.
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The single largest 2025 policy event was the GENIUS Act, signed into law by President Trump on July 18, 2025. While the headline of the act was establishing a federal regulatory framework for payment stablecoins, the law also includes an explicit prohibition on the Federal Reserve issuing a retail CBDC to the public. The Fed retains authority to research wholesale CBDC concepts, but a digital dollar that ordinary Americans could hold is, for now, off the table by statute.
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The policy effect has been to push US digital-dollar use toward regulated stablecoins. For context on how stablecoin issuers fit into payment flows, see our overview of stablecoin payment rails.
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The most active CBDC experimentation in 2026 is not retail. It is wholesale, cross-border, and bank-to-bank. Two projects matter most:
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Project Agora, coordinated by the BIS Innovation Hub, brings together seven major central banks (Bank of France representing the eurosystem, Bank of England, Bank of Japan, Bank of Korea, Bank of Mexico, Swiss National Bank, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York) plus a large group of private financial institutions. The project is exploring how tokenized commercial bank deposits and tokenized central bank money can interoperate across jurisdictions on a shared programmable platform. Agora's design phase concluded in late 2025; technical experimentation runs through 2026.
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Project mBridge, mentioned above, is the more politically loaded counterpart. It connects the central banks of China, Hong Kong, Thailand, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. The BIS Innovation Hub left mBridge in late 2024, but the participating central banks continue to operate the platform. Bilateral commercial pilots, particularly between Chinese and UAE banks, have settled real cross-border transactions in 2025 and 2026.
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Three things will shape the second half of the year. First, the ECB Governing Council's decision vote on the digital euro. Second, the Bank of England's mid-year progress update on the digital pound. Third, whether China announces a formal nationwide expansion of the e-CNY beyond pilot status. Any of those would shift the trajectory meaningfully.
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The quieter story is the continued growth of private stablecoins as the de facto digital cash for cross-border flows, particularly in markets where a domestic CBDC either does not exist or has failed to gain traction. The GENIUS Act has accelerated that trend in the US, and policy in Europe and the UK is increasingly framed as a response to it.
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No, not in 2026, and the trajectory does not point that way for the foreseeable future. Outside China, no retail CBDC has come close to the scale of major payment stablecoins. USDC and USDT together settled trillions of dollars in 2025 across public blockchains. The Sand Dollar settles around B$2 million per month. The two systems are different products serving different users: CBDCs are domestic public money infrastructure; payment stablecoins are global, programmable, and primarily dollar-denominated.
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This article draws on the Atlantic Council CBDC Tracker (live database, accessed May 2026), the Bank for International Settlements (Project Agora and Project mBridge updates, 2024 to 2026), the People's Bank of China (e-CNY disclosures, 2024 and 2025), the European Central Bank (preparation phase reports, 2023 to 2025), the Bank of England and HM Treasury (digital pound consultation papers, 2023 to 2025), the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Central Bank of The Bahamas, the Bank of Jamaica, and the public text of the GENIUS Act (Public Law, July 2025). Transaction figures are the most recent disclosed by each central bank as of May 2026.
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