Status report — cbdc bill
The US Digital Dollar: Banned Before It Was Born
The United States is the only major economy actively legislating against a CBDC. Understanding the US position requires holding two facts at once: the digital dollar is politically dead, and the US is simultaneously building more on-chain dollar infrastructure than anyone — just not at the central bank.
What’s actually banned, and by what
Three instruments, in escalating order of permanence:
- Executive Order (January 2025). Among Trump’s first acts, the order prohibited federal agencies from establishing, issuing or promoting a CBDC, halting all Federal Reserve retail-CBDC research (including follow-on work from the Boston Fed/MIT Project Hamilton, which had already concluded in 2022).
- The Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act — the “CBDC bill.” Rep. Tom Emmer’s H.R. 1919 passed the House 219–210 in July 2025. It amends the Federal Reserve Act to prohibit the Fed from issuing, developing, or using a retail CBDC, and codifies the executive order. Sen. Cruz’s companion S. 1124 sits in the Senate Banking Committee; the House text was also attached to a Senate vehicle (S. 1318) in April 2026.
- Status: not yet law. As of June 2026, no anti-CBDC bill has been enacted — the ban currently rests on the executive order, which a future president could reverse. That’s precisely why proponents want the statute.
Why the US killed it
The surveillance argument won, completely. “Programmable money” became shorthand for expiring stimulus checks and politically filtered transactions (the legitimate core of that fear), and e-CNY provided the reference villain. But the quieter structural reasons matter as much:
- The US doesn’t need the sovereignty hedge. The digital euro exists because Europe fears dependence on US payment networks and dollar stablecoins. The US is the issuer of the currency those stablecoins tokenize — a CBDC defends against a threat America doesn’t face.
- The private sector got there first. Instant payments shipped (FedNow, RTP), and dollar stablecoins became a US strategic asset — roughly 99% of stablecoin value is dollar-denominated, extending dollar reach into every market with a smartphone.
- Bank lobbying. Deposit flight to a Fed retail coin was an existential issue for banks; they pushed the tokenized-deposit alternative instead.
What the US is building instead
The “no CBDC” headline obscures the actual policy: regulated private digital dollars on public rails.
| Instead of… | The US shipped… |
|---|---|
| A Fed retail coin | The GENIUS Act (2025) — federal licensing for stablecoin issuers |
| A wholesale CBDC | Bank tokenized deposits — JPMD live since Nov 2025; big-bank consortium network targeting 2027 |
| State payment rails | Visa settling US bank transactions in USDC on Solana since Dec 2025 |
This is the hybrid architecture in its purest form: the state regulates, private issuers issue, public chains settle. It’s also why Solana matters in the CBDC conversation despite no central bank issuing there — in the American model, the public chain is the retail rail.
The unresolved questions
- Can the EO be reversed? Yes — which is the entire point of the statutory push. Watch S. 1124 / the S. 1318 vehicle in the Senate; passage would make the ban durable.
- Does “retail” leave wholesale room? The bills target retail CBDC. Tokenized settlement among institutions remains legally open — and the private sector is occupying that space first.
- What if stablecoins wobble? The US has bet monetary modernization on private issuers under the GENIUS framework. A major issuer failure would reopen the debate instantly (the risk comparison explains the fault line).
Bottom line
Searches for “cbdc ban,” “Trump CBDC,” and “anti-CBDC act” all resolve to the same reality: an executive-order ban in force since January 2025, a House-passed statute awaiting the Senate, and zero Federal Reserve CBDC work in progress. The US digital dollar isn’t delayed — it’s been replaced by a different design philosophy. Whether that’s wisdom or a strategic error is the most interesting open question in money, and the tracker shows the rest of the world betting the other way.
Related: CBDC pros and cons · CBDC privacy · What is a CBDC