The U.S. Senate passed a bill that includes a ban on the Federal Reserve issuing a digital dollar until 2030. Eighty-five senators voted in favor, five against. The measure still needs to pass the House of Representatives and receive President Donald Trump’s signature.
Background
The CBDC ban is included in the affordable housing bill 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act — an unusual legislative move that allows Republicans to speed up adoption of the measure.
The amendment prohibits the Fed “from issuing or creating a central bank digital currency or any digital asset substantially similar to a CBDC, directly or indirectly — through a financial institution or intermediary.” At the time of passage, the Fed was not conducting any practical work on a digital dollar.
The measure would effectively codify the course set by Trump in January 2025. At that time, the president signed an executive order barring the administration from taking steps toward a digital dollar, calling it a threat to “the stability of the financial system, citizens’ privacy, and U.S. sovereignty.”
The core objection is not to digital money as such, but to a state-run architecture. If the Fed issues a digital dollar directly, the government technically gains real-time access to all transactions, Technobit CEO Alexander Peresichan told ForkLog.
“That is why Trump supporters view a CBDC not just as a new form of the dollar, but as a potential tool of financial oversight. The Chinese model of the digital yuan (e-CNY), where the state has much broader capabilities to control monetary flows, is often cited as an example,” he said.
He added that private stablecoins will not replace a state digital currency because they serve different purposes:
“Stablecoins like USDT remain instruments of the private market, whereas a CBDC is part of the monetary system and a tool for controlling the money supply.”
Economic argument
Beyond privacy concerns, opponents of a CBDC raise a structural point: if people can hold funds directly in Fed digital wallets, some deposits would leave commercial banks. Millpay executive director Igor Plotnikov said this is why the Trump administration is betting on private dollar stablecoins.
“This approach preserves the dollar’s dominance in the digital economy without a wholesale overhaul of the existing financial system,” he told ForkLog.
Both Fed chairs have consistently opposed a digital dollar. Jerome Powell said that even if a CBDC were launched, administration would be delegated to commercial banks. His successor Kevin Warsh called a digital dollar “a misguided policy decision.”
Elsewhere, others scale up
At the opposite end is China. By November 2025, e-CNY payment volume reached 16.7 trillion yuan ($2.37 trillion), with 3.48 billion transactions processed. The number of personal wallets reached 230 million and corporate wallets 18.84 million. In June 2026, the People’s Bank of China connected 26 banks to the cross-border system CBETS, including banks from Singapore, Thailand, the UAE, Qatar, Brazil, and other countries.
According to Igor Plotnikov, if current integration continues, CBETS could form “a partial functional alternative to SWIFT in select corridors within five years” — primarily for settlements between countries seeking to reduce reliance on dollar-based infrastructure.
As of January 1, 2026, e-CNY moved to version 2.0. Retail balances are now liabilities of commercial banks — they can be used for fractional reserve and lending and are covered by deposit insurance; large state banks already pay interest at the demand-deposit rate. Nonbank providers must hold full backing.
At the same time, e-CNY has not lost its status as legal tender: PBOC adviser Jianhua Zhang describes the reform as an expansion of functions rather than a change in the instrument’s nature. PBOC deputy governor Lu Lei explicitly called this model an alternative to stablecoins — it prevents outflows from banks and is compatible with the existing financial infrastructure.
For its part, the European Central Bank completed the preparation phase of the digital euro in October 2025. Pilot testing with licensed payment providers is scheduled for the second half of 2027, with a large-scale launch in 2029. The legal framework (the DER) is to be approved in 2026.
Earlier, ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone explained the need to create a European digital payment system as part of a fight for the region’s sovereignty.
In the context of economic rivalry, Igor Plotnikov believes the CBDC ban neither weakens nor strengthens the dollar’s position directly.
“This decision cements the difference in approaches: the U.S. is betting on private innovative infrastructure, while China is developing a centralized model with a high level of state control over transactions,” he concluded.
In May, Donald Trump signed an order on integrating digital assets into the traditional financial system and revising rules for crypto companies’ access to payment infrastructure.
