According to Reuters, the Atlantic Council think tank released a report saying that central banks in 130 countries and regions, accounting for 98% of the global economy, are exploring digital currencies, nearly half of which are in the advanced development, pilot or launch stages, and all G20 countries except Argentina have entered the advanced stage.
The report pointed out that in the past six months, central banks have been particularly active in exploring digital currencies. Eleven countries, including the Caribbean and Nigeria, have launched central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), while China's digital RMB pilot test has now covered 260 million people, covering about 200 payment scenarios such as e-commerce and government consumption subsidies. Two other large emerging economies, India and Brazil, also plan to launch digital currencies next year. The European Central Bank is expected to launch a digital euro pilot in 2028, and more than 20 other countries will also take major measures to conduct pilots this year.
However, in the United States, the digital dollar is “moving forward” only on the wholesale (bank-to-bank) version, while work on a retail version for a wider population has “stagnated,” according to the Atlantic Council’s research.
