
Countries with most research into retail consumer CBDC 2021-2022
China ranked as the third country worldwide in terms of how far developed its retail Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) were, as of December 2020. Allegedly aiming to launch its e-CNY digital currency during the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, China's retail efforts into cryptocurrencies were ranked behind those of Cambodia and the Bahamas in an index that released in early 2021. Note that the figures provided here are on retail CBDC, which can be held and used by both consumers as well as a companies as a substitute for paper money or physical coins: Retail CBDC is essentially a digital substitute for fiat currency. This is different from developments found in interbank CBDC - which concerns cryptocurrencies used by financial institutions for interbank payments and financial settlement processes.