The Silent Revolution (II): How the Rest of the World Is Preparing for Digital Money

 

In the first entry we looked at the United States — one of the world's main reserve currencies and economies — and saw how it's rebuilding money from the inside, betting on regulated private stablecoins instead of a state-issued currency. That's no small thing: because of the dollar's weight as the global reserve, whatever happens there will eventually spill over onto everyone else.

But the United States isn't deciding alone. Now that we know its move, it's time to look at the rest of the board: how the other economies are preparing for the same transition. And here comes the surprise that gives this whole series its meaning: they aren't all copying the same model. Rival philosophies are emerging about what digital money should be, and the world is dividing among them. Let's meet the two big alternatives to the American model.

The Chinese model: the State is the currency

If the American model says "let the market decide," China says exactly the opposite: the central bank is the digital money. It's the precise mirror image.

China has spent years building its digital yuan (the e-CNY), still the largest live central bank digital currency experiment in the world. The figures are striking: more than 3.4 billion transactions, worth close to 16.7 trillion yuan — roughly 2.4 trillion dollars. Where Washington cedes the ground to private companies, Beijing centralizes everything in the hands of the State.

And there's a second, even more ambitious layer: China is laying payment rails that bypass the dollar entirely. Its cross-border platform, mBridge — shared with Hong Kong, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia — has already moved more than 55 billion dollars, with the digital yuan accounting for roughly 95% of that volume. Crude oil has even been bought paying in digital yuan, in the first cross-border settlement of its kind. The idea is clear: to trade without passing through the dollar or Western intermediary banks.

Now, let's be honest about the limits, because it's easy to overstate them here. Experts agree that mBridge, as things stand today, won't dethrone the dollar in one blow; at best it could erode it slowly, in specific corridors and sectors. In fact, the project has attracted few members and still processes a modest volume. "Alternative to the dollar" is not the same as "replacement for the dollar" — at least, not yet.

The price of this model is the one you already suspect: control and surveillance. In a system where the central bank issues the money and sees every transaction, state efficiency is paid for with privacy. It's the maximum-control model in its purest form.

The European model: sovereignty on the defensive

Europe represents the third path, and its move is less about innovation than about defense. The fear driving it is "digital dollarization": that its citizens and businesses end up using American digital dollars instead of their own currency. And within Europe, two stances worth distinguishing coexist.

The eurozone does both things at once: it's preparing a state-issued digital euro and it allows private stablecoins regulated under its MiCA framework. But it moves slowly and cautiously. The European Central Bank is targeting a pilot in 2027 and a possible first issuance only in 2029. And the design includes a telling detail: a holding limit of around 3,000 euros per person, meant to prevent a mass flight of money out of traditional banks. In other words, the digital euro isn't born to compete on efficiency with stablecoins, but to contain their advance. The figure that sums up the European drama: while dollar-denominated stablecoins top 300 billion, euro-denominated ones barely reach a few hundred million. Europe is playing from behind.

The United Kingdom, now outside the European Union, is trying to be nimbler and more business-friendly. Its main bet is not a state-issued digital pound — the famous "Britcoin" has no launch date and has slipped into the background — but rather promoting private stablecoins pegged to the pound. It designed a two-tier system: small issuers are supervised by the conduct authority (the FCA), and the large ones, those that could affect the country's stability, come under the direct watch of the Bank of England. After industry complaints that the rules were too strict, the Bank softened its stance and set a temporary cap of 40 billion pounds per issuer, allowing unrestricted use by households and businesses. And in August 2026 the British government took a symbolic step: it handed the Bank of England an explicit duty to support innovation in digital payments, not just police it.

The European lesson, inside or outside the euro, is the same: the fear of being left behind and dollarized. London bets on speed and the market; Brussels, on prudence and sovereignty. But both are racing against the same clock.

A paradox to close on (and a door left open)

If this tour of the great powers reveals anything, it's an irony that's hard to ignore. Almost everyone — China with its parallel rails, Europe with its defensive digital euro, the UK with its private pounds — is moved, deep down, by the same impulse: to reduce their dependence on the dollar. And yet, because the vast majority of stablecoins are denominated in dollars, this digital revolution may be reinforcing the dollar's dominance instead of weakening it. A dollarization disguised as decentralization.

Three models, one board: the one the market controls (United States), the one the State controls (China), and the one that defends itself cautiously (Europe). But there's an actor missing from this story — and it may be the most surprising of all. It isn't a government or a central bank: it's ordinary people, who across much of the world have already voted with their money without waiting for anyone's permission. And beyond even that, there's a frontier that until recently seemed like science fiction and today is starting to have contracts, companies, and a timeline: the economy of space.

Those two frontiers — the one already unfolding here on Earth and the one literally lifting off beyond it — are what the next entry is about. Stay with me, navigator: the map of the future is still being drawn.