SuperEx Education Series: Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and Their Relationship with the Crypto World

The simplest way to explain central bank digital currency is: a digital currency issued by a country’s central bank—CBDC for short. Of course, major countries/regions such as the United States, Russia, China, and the EU have not officially launched CBDCs yet, but their programs have been steadily advancing.

This isn’t yet another hype cycle spun up by a crypto project; it’s a state-led overhaul of systems tied to sovereignty, regulation, and payment order.

By 2025, CBDCs have become the “second track” of the global financial system. Their relationship with cryptocurrencies isn’t simple competition, but rather two parallel financial universes—one where trust is driven by algorithms, and one where credit is led by the state.

Why is the whole world working on CBDCs?

From the disappearance of cash to a “sovereign currency crisis,” the starting point of this shift is simple: cash is vanishing. After the pandemic, cashless societies spread rapidly. Whether it’s Alipay/WeChat Pay in China or Apple Pay/Revolut in Europe, the use of paper money has fallen off a cliff.

For central banks, that’s a warning sign—if the circulation of money is entirely controlled by commercial banks or tech firms, the “last mile” of national monetary policy gets cut. CBDCs appear precisely to rebuild sovereign control over money:

Replace cash while preserving the central bank’s issuance power over circulating money;
Improve payment efficiency and reduce clearing costs;
Strengthen oversight and prevent money laundering and illicit flows;
Counter the decentralization challenge posed by stablecoins and cryptocurrencies.

In short: CBDC is a state version of “de-cashification,” a central bank response to the Web3 era.

CBDC progress in major countries and regions

United States: From skepticism to planning a “digital dollar”

An awkward spot for dollar digitization
Globally, the U.S. has the most ambivalent stance on CBDCs.

On the one hand, the Federal Reserve has long stayed in “technical observation mode”;
On the other, private “dollar substitutes” like USDT/USDC already dominate on-chain payments worldwide.

That leaves the Fed torn:

If it doesn’t act, the digital status of the dollar internationally may be supplanted by private stablecoins;
If it rushes out a CBDC, it triggers social controversy over financial privacy and limits of state power.

FedNow as a bridge
In 2023, the Fed launched FedNow, a real-time payment system. It isn’t a CBDC, but it’s an infrastructure prototype for a future digital dollar, giving the U.S. banking system 24/7 settlement and laying a technical foundation.

Meanwhile, Congress has discussed the Digital Dollar Project, led by former CFTC Chair Giancarlo, advocating a public-private approach to CBDC. In short, the U.S. strategy is: let private stablecoins run first, with a government CBDC filling in later.

China: A global frontrunner and a working template

The logic of the e-CNY: steady and practical
China’s digital yuan (e-CNY) is among the earliest CBDC pilots. Since 2019, the PBoC has run large-scale tests in cities like Shenzhen, Suzhou, and Chengdu.

Unlike cryptocurrencies, the e-CNY isn’t a decentralized, blockchain-run system. It uses a two-tier architecture:

Central bank layer: issuance and master ledger;
Commercial bank layer: user onboarding, circulation, and adoption.

This balances “state control” with “market efficiency.” Crucially, it isn’t fully anonymous: the central bank can trace flows, while the public faces “controllable anonymity,” meaning privacy is protected but compliant oversight can intervene.

Economic and policy significance
The e-CNY’s strategy isn’t to “replace Alipay,” but to build new pathways for RMB internationalization. Combined with cross-border systems (e.g., mBridge, Swift+), e-CNY could become a new cross-border clearing standard and reduce reliance on dollar settlement.

In short: China’s CBDC is a blend of “sovereign fintech” and “monetary diplomacy.”

Europe: From a “digital euro” to a tool against dollarization

ECB’s ambition
Europe moved steadily but slowly, entering a digital euro prototyping phase in 2023. The design centers on financial sovereignty—blocking the penetration of dollar stablecoins (e.g., USDC) in the euro area while maintaining visibility over payment systems.
Innovation via “two-tier accounts”
The digital euro also uses a two-tier model: users still open accounts via commercial banks, but the settlement layer is managed by the ECB. Technically it emphasizes privacy and offline payments, aiming for “trustworthy yet controllable e-cash.”
It may eventually integrate deeply with SEPA, enabling true instant cross-border euro transfers.

Southeast Asia and emerging markets: Testbeds and opportunity zones

In Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America, CBDCs are more pragmatic. These regions often lack financial infrastructure, and about 2 billion people are unbanked. CBDCs are a shortcut to leapfrog traditional banking.

Examples:

Nigeria’s eNaira: boosts financial inclusion but faces adoption hurdles;
Bahamas’ Sand Dollar: world’s first officially issued CBDC, focused on island payments;
Cambodia’s Bakong: built with Japan’s Soramitsu using a blockchain base;
Thailand & Hong Kong’s mBridge: aiming for regional CBDC interoperability.

These countries innovate technically but face a bigger barrier—public trust and user habits. For many, digital money remains unfamiliar.

CBDC and crypto: enemies—or mirrors?

People often pit CBDCs and cryptocurrencies against each other—CBDCs symbolize order, regulation, and state power; cryptos symbolize freedom, pseudonymity, and decentralization. But over a longer arc, they aren’t enemies so much as different stages of the same monetary evolution.

Two trust mechanisms—opposed, yet converging
Crypto’s origin was to remove reliance on centralized authority. As Bitcoin’s whitepaper opens: “A purely peer-to-peer electronic cash system.” Trust comes from math, code, and consensus—not governments or banks.

CBDCs, on the other hand, are the state’s redefinition of trust. They don’t seek to dismantle the existing order; they use blockchain-era tech to strengthen regulation and payment efficiency. Algorithms still run, but serve sovereign credit and macro policy goals.

If Bitcoin is a “technical revolt,” CBDC is the sovereign system’s digital counteroffensive. One departs from freedom, the other from order—both answer the same question: How should money be trusted in the 21st century?

Decentralization vs. limited centralization
Crypto espouses “no intermediaries.” Every transaction is validated on-chain, no bank clearing needed—boosting efficiency and giving global users a shared, trust-minimized ledger.

CBDCs adopt “limited centralization.” They rarely let everyone validate; instead, they use permissioned blockchains, with nodes controlled by central banks and designated financial institutions. You keep transparency and immutability while preserving absolute state control over issuance and circulation.

Hence central banks’ mantra: tech-neutral, policy-first—borrow distributed architecture, keep sovereign credit at the core.

Two paths: rebellion and absorption
Historically, crypto is a revolt against the monetary system—rejecting inflation, censorship, and intermediaries. As the crypto economy grew toward real-world borders, nation-states realized the “rebel force” had become an unavoidable financial lab.

CBDCs are therefore not just regulation—they’re absorptive responses to crypto innovation:

Crypto introduced programmable finance; CBDCs import policy tools with smart-contract flavor;
Crypto made cross-border clearing more efficient; CBDCs explore mBridge, Project Dunbar, and other standards;
Stablecoins drove demand for fiat digitization; CBDCs rebuild the trust stack as the official version.

In other words, CBDCs are not crypto’s terminator—they are its institutional heir.

An enduring balance: control and freedom
At a macro level, CBDCs and crypto are mirror symbiosis. Crypto stands for “algorithmic freedom,” CBDC for “state order.” One idealizes decentralization, the other guards governance efficiency.

But freedom and order aren’t binary. They’re two interlaced tides moving toward the same endpoint: a more efficient, transparent, and inclusive global monetary network.

In the coming decade, a mixed reality may emerge: CBDCs run in national payment systems for macro stability, while crypto continues open-market innovation, building asset-ized, composable finance. The boundary blurs—governments absorb on-chain governance ideas; DeFi protocols introduce compliant “central bank liquidity channels.”

When this mutual permeation completes, the “crypto vs. CBDC” dichotomy fades, replaced by a hybrid monetary order where algorithms and sovereignty coexist.

Conclusion: Who defines “digital trust”?

Over the past fifteen years, Bitcoin proved that trust need not rely on authority; CBDCs prove that authority can use algorithms to reshape trust. Philosophically, both are society’s iterative attempts at financial trust:

One pursues a decentralized dream of self-governance;
The other uses technology to extend a sovereign dream of order.

The future financial system won’t be fully decentralized nor fully nationalized. It will be a dual-track network—code at the base, policy on top.

We stand at the inflection point where these two forces intertwine. CBDCs aren’t crypto’s enemy; they’re an evolution in a different direction. As with all technological revolutions, what defines the future isn’t posture, but applications and shared consensus.