Lessons From Launched CBDCs: Sand Dollar, JAM-DEX and eNaira Data

In February 2023, point-of-sale agents in Jos were charging up to ten times their usual fee to hand out cash. Nigeria's central bank had withdrawn old naira notes faster than it could print new ones, and notes in circulation had collapsed from about N3.23 trillion to roughly N1 trillion. If there was ever a moment for a central bank digital currency to win, this was it: a population starved of cash, a government-issued digital alternative already live for 16 months, and about 13 million wallets opened. The eNaira had its moment, and it still did not take off. That episode is the clearest lesson the world has from the three retail CBDCs that have actually launched.

Most CBDC debate is about design: privacy, offline payments, programmability, bank disintermediation. The three live systems in the Bahamas, Jamaica and Nigeria let us look at something more useful, which is behaviour. What happens when ordinary people and merchants are given a central bank wallet? The short answer is: not much, unless the wallet does a job nothing else does.

The scorecard: three launches, tiny footprints

As of 2026, the Atlantic Council's CBDC tracker counts 146 countries exploring a central bank digital currency and 41 pilot projects (May 2026), but only three full retail launches: the Bahamas, Jamaica and Nigeria. All three have spent years trying to expand domestic use. All three remain marginal next to cash, cards and bank apps.

Sources: AFI, The Block, Central Bank of The Bahamas, Jamaica Observer, Nairametrics, Condia, WeeTracker. Nigerian share calculated from CBN figures for eNaira and notes and coins outside banks; figures are the latest each source reports.

For a sense of how small these numbers are: the Bahamas has more than 100,000 registered wallets, roughly a quarter of the population, but the total value held in them was under 1% of currency in circulation. Jamaica's roughly J$320 million of JAM-DEX compares with more than J$320 billion of notes and coins, according to a Jamaica Observer analysis from April 2026. These are not failed technologies. They are working systems that people mostly ignore.

Lesson one: a CBDC needs a job that existing rails do not do

The most candid statement on this came from Nigeria's own central bank. When it unveiled its Payments System Vision 2028 in June 2026, the CBN conceded that the eNaira offered little that existing platforms did not already provide more conveniently, and cited limited stakeholder buy-in during design. Nigeria already had instant bank transfers, a dense agent network and fast-growing fintech wallets. The eNaira processed about N22 billion in transactions over nearly five years, against close to N1 quadrillion of electronic payments in 2024 alone. Its original target was 300 million transactions by 2026.

Jamaica's bankers made the same argument from the other side. The Jamaica Bankers Association said the business case to prioritise JAM-DEX remains challenging when set against debit cards, bank transfers and existing wallets, especially while banks are busy with ISO 20022 migration, ATM reliability and RTGS upgrades, as Caribbean360 reported. In the Bahamas, Governor John Rolle noted that much Sand Dollar activity was wallet providers settling with each other, not people buying things.

A central bank can issue digital money. It cannot issue a reason to use it.

The implication for countries still piloting is uncomfortable. Where instant payment systems already work well, a retail CBDC competes with something good and free. That is why the comparison in our piece on the e-rupee versus UPI matters so much for India.

Lesson two: distribution belongs to banks, and banks have little incentive

Every launched CBDC has relied on intermediaries to put wallets in people's hands and terminals in shops. Every one has struggled to get those intermediaries to care. Jamaica's departing governor Richard Byles, whose term was due to end in August 2026, called the slow take-up his greatest regret and pinned the bottleneck on unconverted point-of-sale machines. The Bank of Jamaica offered to pay half the cost of each terminal upgrade and gave merchants grants, yet only two wallet providers were live by mid-2026.

The Bahamas reached the same conclusion and moved to compulsion. In July 2024, Rolle said the central bank was preparing regulations that would require commercial banks to give customers Sand Dollar access, after acknowledging adoption remained limited. Its near-term priority was integration with the Bahamas Automated Clearing House so wallets could be topped up from deposit accounts. The central bank's own updates show that when proprietary wallets were integrated with bank accounts, top-ups through the ACH rose.

The pattern is consistent. Banks earn fees and float on deposits and cards. A CBDC wallet earns them nothing and can pull deposits out. Unless regulators mandate distribution or pay for it, the incentives point the wrong way.

Lesson three: incentives buy sign-ups, not habits

All three central banks tried paying people to join. Jamaica gave J$2,500 to the first 100,000 people who opened a wallet. The Bahamas disbursed $119,054 in Sand Dollar promotions and rebates between January and November 2023. Nigeria pushed USSD access in 2022 to reach feature-phone users. Sign-ups rose each time. Use did not follow.

The IMF's assessment of the eNaira found that about 98.5% of wallets went unused in any given week, and that total transactions since launch were fewer than the number of wallets. Its suggestions were telling: route government aid through the eNaira, push merchant acceptance, and offer attractive exchange rates for remittances so that diaspora money stopped flowing through unofficial channels. In other words, give it a job.

Jamaica's recent numbers show what a small push can do from a low base. JAM-DEX transaction value rose 550% and volume 267% in 2025 compared with 2024, and peer-to-peer transfers grew about 30% a quarter in the first half of 2025. But the stock in circulation still sits at around a tenth of one percent of cash.

Worked example: how much money actually sits in these wallets

Dividing circulation by wallets gives a blunt measure of whether people are using CBDC as money or just holding an app.

• Bahamas: $1.7 million in circulation at end-2023 across 118,955 personal wallets is roughly $14 per wallet. For comparison, a Tier One wallet can hold up to $500 and a Tier Two wallet up to $8,000. The average user holds less than 3% of the basic limit.
• Nigeria: N18.35 billion at end-September 2024 across about 13 million wallets is roughly N1,400 per wallet, less than the price of a restaurant lunch in Lagos. Against N4,292.72 billion of notes and coins, eNaira was about 0.43% of physical currency, according to CBN figures reported by Nairametrics.
• Jamaica: J$320 million against J$320 billion of currency is 0.1%. Even if every registered wallet were active, the average balance would be small.

These balances say people treat CBDC wallets as a pass-through at best, much as many people treat a prepaid card. That is not necessarily a failure if the goal is payments rather than store of value. But no launched CBDC has yet shown high payment volume either.

Lesson four: cash scarcity is not adoption

Nigeria's 2023 naira redesign was an unplanned stress test. Before it, more than 85% of naira notes, about N2.73 trillion of N3.23 trillion, sat outside bank vaults. When the old notes were withdrawn, notes in circulation fell to around N1 trillion, and roughly 90% of informal-economy transactions depend on cash. eNaira transaction value jumped from about N8 billion at end-November 2022 to around N22 billion. But most Nigerians turned to bank transfers and POS agents instead, and once the Supreme Court ruled old notes would remain legal tender until December 2023, cash came back.

The lesson is that people under pressure pick the digital option they already know. A CBDC launched into a crisis inherits the crisis, not the loyalty.

What this means for India and the pilot countries

India's e-rupee is still a pilot, with about Rs 1,016 crore in circulation by March 2025 according to the RBI annual report, while UPI handles around 802 million payments a day as of September 2026. The launched CBDCs suggest that a retail digital rupee will not win by competing with UPI on everyday payments. It has a better chance where it offers something UPI cannot: programmable payments for subsidies and purpose-bound transfers, offline payments in low-connectivity areas, and cross-border settlement.

Nigeria has now reached the same conclusion. Under PSV 2028, the CBN plans to stop competing with bank apps and mobile money and use the eNaira as back-end infrastructure for government-to-person payments and cross-border settlement linked to AfCFTA goals. That is a sensible retreat, and it echoes the broader shift we describe in stablecoins vs CBDCs vs tokenised deposits: wholesale and settlement uses are where central bank money on new rails is gaining ground.

Our view: the three launches are not proof that CBDCs are useless. They are proof that a retail CBDC is a distribution and product problem first and a technology problem a distant second. Countries that start from a specific use case, mandate or pay for distribution, and integrate with existing rails rather than competing with them will do better than the first movers did. For the global picture, see our CBDC tracker and our explainer on the digital rupee.

What to watch next

• By end-2026: whether Jamaica adds the two further JAM-DEX wallet providers the Bank of Jamaica expects, and what the new governor does with the programme after Byles's departure in August 2026.
• 2026-27: publication of the Bahamas regulations requiring banks to distribute Sand Dollar, the first real test of mandated distribution.
• 2026-2028: Nigeria's PSV 2028 rollout, including whether welfare transfers are actually routed through the eNaira.
• May 2027: the RBI's next annual report, with updated e-rupee circulation and pilot data.
• Ongoing: Atlantic Council tracker updates, which will show whether any of the 41 pilot projects moves to a full launch, and whether it learns from the first three.

About this researchMuffinPay InsightsIndependent analysis of stablecoins, CBDCs, cross-border payments and digital public infrastructure. Every figure is linked to its source. Read our editorial standards →