The United States has taken a decisive step against central bank digital currencies through legislative action, with the US Senate passing the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act by a sweeping 85-5 vote on June 16. The bill includes a temporary ban on the Federal Reserve issuing a central bank digital currency until December 31, 2030, with the restriction specifically barring the Fed from "issuing or creating a central bank digital currency or any digital asset substantially similar to a CBDC.". The bill now heads to the House, where swift passage is expected, and would then go to President Donald Trump for signature and take effect immediately. A key exception is made for private stablecoins, with the law explicitly allowing "open, permissionless, and confidential dollar-denominated assets" that provide privacy comparable to cash. This decision represents a significant shift from the country's previous approach of effectively banning a public digital dollar through executive order and legislation, with Republicans using the housing package as a political vehicle to push their long-standing opposition to CBDCs. The latest legislative amendment emphasizes congressional control over monetary systems, with key lawmakers including Senator Tim Scott, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Representative French Hill, and Representative Maxine Waters supporting the ban.
By 2026, the world has split sharply over central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), with around 134-146 countries representing the overwhelming majority of world economic output exploring CBDCs in some form, according to the Atlantic Council. A small group of retail CBDCs is live and circulating, including the Sand Dollar in the Bahamas, JAM-DEX in Jamaica, and the eNaira in Nigeria, along with a shared system in the Eastern Caribbean. China's e-CNY remains the largest program by transaction volume, with cumulative transactions reported around ₹16 trillion yuan (approximately ₹2 trillion USD) across many cities and hundreds of millions of users, though it remains officially a pilot. The digital euro is in its decision and preparation stage, with the European Central Bank having finished a multi-year prep phase and moving toward a launch decision, while the digital pound sits in a design phase in the United Kingdom. The Atlantic Council's latest tally shows three countries have already launched CBDCs, 41 are running pilots, 33 are in development, and another 40 are still researching.
While retail CBDCs grab political spotlight, cross-border wholesale projects represent some of the most consequential CBDC work. On June 16, China added 26 financial institutions to its digital yuan cross-border platform, according to Reuters reports. The Bank of Korea is moving its CBDC pilot to the next phase, with nine commercial banks creating digital wallets, vouchers, and blockchain infrastructure to integrate digital money into the existing banking system. Earlier tests were limited to isolated payments through deposit tokens, but now participants can use CBDC for real transactions and settlements. The plan includes replacing government subsidies and targeted payments with digital vouchers to boost efficiency and cut administrative costs. These projects have moved real transactions and grown quickly, with their significance being strategic as much as technical, as they could route around the existing system that runs largely through United States banks and the dollar.
Recent technological developments demonstrate significant progress in CBDC infrastructure capabilities. Panurus, the current version of Fabric Token SDK, has successfully powered real-world wholesale CBDC experiments conducted by the Banque de France and the Bank of Canada, validating its institutional-scale performance for demanding financial use cases. The project maintains comprehensive documentation, extensive test coverage including unit, integration, and benchmark tests, and complete community standards compliance. LFDT governance addresses critical needs through vendor neutrality, reduced duplication, enhanced security, and interoperability, ensuring collaborative development and shared innovation across the ecosystem. The Panurus roadmap for the next 12-24 months focuses on real-world financial applications that demand high transaction throughput and low latency, with comprehensive compliance capabilities validated through production deployments.
The primary concern with retail CBDCs is potential government tracking of spending, as depending on the design, a central bank could potentially see transactions. This is why privacy features and holding limits dominate the design debates. Banks worry about CBDCs because money held directly at the central bank is money not held in commercial banks, which could drain deposits and shrink the credit banks provide. This fear drove Europe's per-person holding caps and influenced China's move to treat its digital currency more like a bank deposit. The debate comes down to a trade-off between the safety and reach of public digital money and the privacy and banking risks of putting the central bank that close to everyday payments.
