LEADING THE
Discussion
on future of the US Dollar
The Digital Dollar Project is a neutral, non-profit forum focused on exploring digital money innovations and preserving the role of the US Dollar in a world of decentralized and centralized sovereign and non-sovereign digital currency networks.
About
Principle-Driven Research
The Digital Dollar Project is dedicated to spearheading principle-driven research and fostering in-depth public discourse on the future of digital monetary innovations. This encompasses a broad spectrum of digital money forms, including Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), stablecoins, tokenized deposits, and other digital currencies. Through a combination of experimental pilots and collaborative working groups, the Project aims to explore and guide public discussion on the potential benefits and challenges of both private and public digital currency networks. These discussions are crucial steps towards ensuring that future financial systems and tools enhance monetary policy effectiveness and financial stability, provide increased access and necessary scalability, security, and privacy, and integrate seamlessly with existing financial infrastructures.
Mission
Future-Proofing The US Dollar
The Digital Dollar Project (DDP) is a privately funded, non-profit, non-governmental organization devoted to catalyzing research, exploration, and real-world experimentation of digital modernization of the U.S. dollar. The DDP believes that the dynamism and innovation of the private sector has a crucial role to play in the consideration of a Digital Dollar. Transparent private sector research and experimentation conducted in a neutral space is beneficial to policymakers, academics, technologists, economists, and the broader national interest. The decision of whether to digitize the dollar is no different than past U.S.-led technological innovations – including the space race and the creation of the Internet – in which both the public and private sectors contributed significantly.
Community
Open Tent Approach
The Digital Dollar Project works closely with its advisory board, participant community, and pilot partners to explore all forms of tokenized digital money through a deliberative process including pilots, stakeholder meetings, roundtable discussions, and open forums. The Digital Dollar Project is open to participants from all relevant sectors, including commercial institutions, the innovation community, non-profit organizations and universities.
Our Research Initiatives
Pilots
Pilots
Our pilot program is born out of the need for a greater understanding of the risks and benefits of a potential US CBDC and its impacts on both the public and private sectors. Through real-world experimentation, the pilots pressure-test the champion model and explore implications across retail, wholesale, and international use cases, generating empirical data used to guide policy and technical decisions.
Experimentation
Technical Experimentation
As the private and public sectors collaborate in exploring digital money, it’s essential for business leaders and policymakers to comprehend the functionality and capabilities of advancing technologies. Our experimentation initiatives, including sandbox programs, fintech hubs, and technical deep dive workshops, aim to bridge educational gaps and study specific hypotheses on of benefits and risks of digital monetary innovations. These efforts focus on creating a future financial system that offers enhanced efficiency, inclusion, transparency, and choice in global payments.
Working Groups
Working Groups
Our working groups are formed from technologists, financial service leaders, innovators, civil societies, policymakers, and consumer and privacy advocates to further thought leadership on topics such as privacy, national security, risk, financial inclusion, integration of AI, and more. Their aim is to explore and clarify the various risks, challenges, and benefits associated with the emergence of new forms of digital money and how we can continue to protect democratic values in an increasingly digital economy.
Policy
Public Policy
The work of the Digital Dollar Project is ultimately aimed at serving the public good by advancing the discussion on the future of the US dollar. All outputs are publicly shared to facilitate education and understanding of digital currency innovation activities, discuss implications, and advocate for responsible advancement. To ensure the United States remains competitive and the U.S. dollar retains its global relevance, the Digital Dollar Project shares all data and research publicly to aid the education of policymakers.
WORKING PAPERS
Digital Dollar Project /// Mar, 20 2025
Modernizing the US Dollar for the Future of Digital Networks
The Digital Dollar Project’s paper, “Modernizing the U.S. Dollar for the Future of Digital Networks”, reflects five years of research on the digital assets, currencies, and networks. It makes a case for upgrading the U.S. dollar network to support digital tokens, including stablecoins, tokenized deposits, and CBDCs while addressing financial stability risks, collaboration on standards and interoperability, and concerns like law enforcement, cybersecurity and, importantly, privacy.
Digital Dollar Project /// Nov 24, 2023
Revisiting the Digital Dollar Project’s Exploration of a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency Whitepaper
Digital Dollar Project's 2020 whitepaper, "Exploring a U.S. CBDC," proposed a "champion model" of the digital dollar, along with eight tenets developed through global research and stakeholder interviews, for public consideration. The updated working paper provides a deeper look into the tenets, and offers research-driven observations that confirm the continued relevancy of the champion model in 2023.
FEATURED NEWS
Fortune /// Jan. 25, 2024
3 keys to ensuring the U.S. maintains dollar primacy in the age of digital money
Today, a new phase is at hand, an Internet of value, payments, and money itself. The choice is clear: Lead, follow, or get left behind.
Cointelegraph /// Jan. 25, 2024
US elections: Are CBDCs becoming ‘hyper-politicized’?
Central bank digital currencies are becoming more politicized globally, “but in the U.S. they seem to be ‘hyper-politicized.’”
Coindesk /// Apr 27, 2023
The U.S. Should Lead the Digital Future of Money
Whether or not the U.S. adopts a digital dollar, American citizens and American multinational corporations are going to be dealing with CBDCs in the years to come. Barring the U.S. from CBDC exploration will neither hinder nor stop the global deployment of CBDCs.
“It’s clear that the global economy in the twenty-first century will encompass a spectrum of both sovereign and non-sovereign digital currencies. The Digital Dollar Project encourages the U.S. to assert principled leadership at home and abroad in order to embed democratic principles and protections in rapidly developing global payments systems.”
J. Christopher Giancarlo, Former Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading
Commission and Co-Founder of the Digital Dollar Project