mBridge Platform Achieves Significant Transaction Volume Growth

MBridge, a China-led cross-border central bank digital currency (CBDC) platform, has now processed more than $55.5 billion in cumulative transaction volume. This figure marks a dramatic 2,500-fold increase compared with the project’s early pilot phase in 2022, highlighting how quickly alternative payment infrastructure is scaling outside traditional dollar-based rails.

Rapid Growth Driven by the Digital Yuan

Since launch, mBridge has facilitated over 4,000 cross-border transactions, with China’s digital yuan (e-CNY) accounting for roughly 95% of total settlement volume. The dominance of e-CNY underscores Beijing’s central role in shaping the platform’s activity and usage patterns. For context, while mBridge’s $55.5 billion figure is notable on a cross-border basis, China’s domestic digital yuan ecosystem processed more than $2.3 trillion in transactions during 2025 alone, showing how the international layer remains small but strategically focused.

Parallel Payment Rails, Not Dollar Replacement

According to analysts at the Atlantic Council, mBridge is not designed to immediately replace the U.S. dollar in global trade. Instead, it aims to build parallel settlement rails that reduce reliance on existing dollar-centric systems. The platform is increasingly used for trade settlement, particularly in energy and commodity-linked transactions, areas where China holds substantial leverage as a global buyer and trading partner. By streamlining settlement directly between participating central banks, mBridge lowers friction, settlement time, and intermediary dependence.

Expanding Bloc of Participating Central Banks

mBridge currently includes the central banks of China, Hong Kong, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, forming a corridor that links Asia with the Middle East. The inclusion of major energy exporters adds strategic weight to the platform’s trade-focused design.

BIS Exit Highlights Global CBDC Fragmentation

The Bank for International Settlements, which helped launch mBridge in 2021, exited the project in late 2024. The BIS has since shifted its attention to Project Agorá, a Western-led CBDC initiative involving central banks from the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, and the Eurozone, which intensified testing in January 2026. This divergence reflects a growing split in global digital currency infrastructure, with China-aligned systems and Western initiatives developing in parallel rather than converging on a single standard.

Why mBridge Matters

While mBridge’s volumes remain small relative to global trade flows, its rapid scaling shows how state-backed digital settlement systems can grow quietly but quickly. The platform’s trajectory suggests that future competition in global finance may hinge less on outright currency replacement and more on who controls the rails through which cross-border value moves.