Book contents
- Totalitarian Money?
- Totalitarian Money?
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- 1The Case against Central Bank Digital Currencies
- 2Background and History of Central Bank Digital Currencies
- 3CBDC Fundamentals
- 4Private Digital Currencies
- 5CBDC Controversies in Different Countries
- 6CBDC Experiences to Date
- 7CBDCs and Macroeconomic Policy
- 8A CBDC Could Disintermediate the Banking System
- 9CBDCs and Financial Inclusion
- 10On the Importance of Financial Privacy
- 11CBDCs as Weaponised Currency
- 12A Reform Agenda for an Efficient Payments System
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - CBDC Experiences to Date
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 June 2026
Book contents
- Totalitarian Money?
- Totalitarian Money?
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- 1The Case against Central Bank Digital Currencies
- 2Background and History of Central Bank Digital Currencies
- 3CBDC Fundamentals
- 4Private Digital Currencies
- 5CBDC Controversies in Different Countries
- 6CBDC Experiences to Date
- 7CBDCs and Macroeconomic Policy
- 8A CBDC Could Disintermediate the Banking System
- 9CBDCs and Financial Inclusion
- 10On the Importance of Financial Privacy
- 11CBDCs as Weaponised Currency
- 12A Reform Agenda for an Efficient Payments System
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Chapter 6 examines the evidence accumulated from CBDCs attempted to date.
The first was the Avant smart card introduced in Finland in 1993, well before modern CBDCs were conceived, and discontinued in 2006. The second was the dinero electrónico (DE) introduced in Ecuador in 2014 but demand was negligible and the DE was withdrawn.
Turning to schemes still in operation, there was the Sand Dollar in the Bahamas, DCash in the countries of the ECCU, and the Jam-Dex in Jamaica, all of which had trivially low adoption rates. The Chinese e-yuan, introduced in 2020, was designed to complement the Chinese Social Credit System and is explicitly intended as a tool of social control. The Nigerian eNaira was launched in 2021; after a slow initial uptake, the Nigerian central bank resorted to a ‘war on cash’ that backfired badly, producing a major cash crisis followed by a subsequent policy reversal and the ousting of the central bank governor.
In all cases, the CBDC was very unpopular and adoption rates by the public were extremely low. It is clear that the public do not want CBDCs.
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- Totalitarian Money?The Case against Central Bank Digital Currencies, pp. 76 - 101Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
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