Central Bank Digital Currencies and Online Payments

130-plus central banks working on digital currencies. 98% of global GDP represented. Those are Atlantic Council numbers from mid-2025, and they sound like a tidal wave until you look at how many have gone live. Three. Three retail CBDCs launched nationally. Everything else is pilots, research papers, and committees. The infrastructure underneath all those pilots will eventually hit online payments hard, though, from everyday retail to platforms like 1xbet and other betting operators that live and die by how fast money moves in and out of user accounts.
Where CBDC Pilots Stand Right Now
One pilot dwarfs the rest. 3.4 billion transactions, roughly $2.3 trillion processed by December 2...