Central Bank Trials Real-Time Retail CBDC Pilot in Metro Area

The “Digital Miami Project” converts existing Federal Reserve liabilities into tokenized digital dollars held in a standalone mobile wallet issued by five participating banks—BankUnited, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, PNC, and Wells Fargo. From this week, 50,000 pre-selected residents can pay 1,200 enrolled merchants using QR codes, near-field communication, or Bluetooth “tap-and-go” offline mode, with every transaction clearing on a permissioned distributed ledger operated by the Atlanta Fed.

Early findings released by the Bank for International Settlements show that retail CBDCs can cut merchant card-acquiring costs by up to 0.9 percentage points and reduce cross-border remittance fees by 52 percent—savings the Miami pilot will validate in real time.

“Consumers will notice two things immediately: money moves like a text message and receipts are programmable,” said Digital Dollar Labs CEO Alejandra Romero. “A parent can send a teen $50 that self-expires in 72 hours and is spendable only at grocery stores within a five-mile radius—all without sharing personal data with Big Tech.”

The pilot runs through November 2027 and is structured under the Fed’s existing payment-system authority, requiring no new legislation. Balances are capped at $3,000 per wallet and are legally equivalent to cash, meaning zero credit risk and full FDIC pass-through insurance. Privacy safeguards include unlinkable “blind signatures” for transactions under $500 and mandatory subpoenas for larger transfers, addressing concerns raised in last year’s Fed white paper on financial surveillance.

Initial metrics released Monday show a 0.8-second average settlement time versus 2.1 seconds for debit cards and 4.6 seconds for stablecoins on public blockchains. Merchant discount rates fall from the current 2.2 percent average to 0.4 percent, potentially saving Miami businesses $29 million annually if scaled county-wide.

Market data from the IMF’s 2025 CBDC survey indicate that 72 percent of central banks now favor iterative pilots before national rollout, citing risk mitigation and public trust as top drivers.

The Miami trial adopts the IMF’s 5-P methodology—preparation, prototyping, public engagement, policy design, and production readiness—with quarterly public reports posted on DigitalDollarMiami.org.

“Miami’s diversity and high digital-wallet penetration make it the ideal living lab,” said Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic. “If a real-time CBDC can work here—across languages, devices, and income levels—it can work anywhere in the United States.”

Digital Dollar Labs is a public-private research consortium founded in 2023 by former Fed, Treasury, and Silicon Valley engineers. Its mission is to design privacy-preserving, inclusive, and interoperable digital-money infrastructure for the United States. The company operates under the supervisory umbrella of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and is funded by participating banks and a grant from the Miami-Dade Innovation Authority.