Traditional Cash Nears End as 137 Countries Race to Launch CBDCs, Venom Study Finds
New research from the Venom Foundation is sounding the alarm: traditional cash could be a relic within two to three years as central bank digital currencies and stablecoins surge across Asia and the Middle East. The study, titled “The End of Traditional Money: How Asia and MENA Are Rewriting Global Finance,” argues that 137 countries, representing roughly 98 percent of world GDP, are now actively building CBDCs, and that a wave of major launches and private stablecoin growth will reshape how people and businesses move money by 2028.
The report points to striking examples of scale already underway. China’s e-CNY pilot, the study notes, had processed the equivalent of roughly $986 billion in transactions by mid-2024, a figure that underlines how fast a carefully managed CBDC can go from experiment to everyday use. India’s e-rupee has also shown dramatic momentum, with circulation expanding several hundred percent in a single year as the Reserve Bank of India scales retail and wholesale pilots. Those country-level numbers, the authors say, are proof that digital money is no longer a niche experiment but a mainstream policy tool.
If the Venom Foundation’s forecast is correct, private stablecoins will play a huge role in that transition. The study repeats a widely discussed projection that the stablecoin market could swell from the low hundreds of billions today to about $2 trillion by 2028, a jump that would force banks, payments firms and regulators to rethink both market structure and monetary plumbing. That projection has been echoed by major banks and consultancies, which point to new U.S. and international regulatory frameworks as the trigger that could unlock a flood of issuance.
From Remittances to Trade
One of the study’s most striking conclusions is geopolitical: regional projects and bilateral corridors in Asia and MENA are eroding the dollar’s monopoly in cross-border payments. Project mBridge, a multi-central bank platform connecting China, the UAE, Thailand, Hong Kong and, more recently, Saudi Arabia, reached minimum viable product in mid-2024 and, the report says, already demonstrates that wholesale CBDC rails can settle cross-border payments in seconds while eliminating large chunks of correspondent-banking fees. If expanded, such platforms could reroute trade and remittance corridors away from traditional dollar-centred payment chains.
The policy landscape is changing fast to meet that reality. The Venom Foundation highlights how regulators across Europe, the United States and key Asian financial centres moved in 2024–25 to create licensing regimes and guardrails for stablecoins and CBDC interoperability. The result, the authors argue, is a two-track transformation: public CBDCs issued by central banks and private stablecoins issued under regulated frameworks, sometimes cooperating, sometimes competing, but together making cash less necessary for everyday transactions.
That transformation carries both promise and disruption. Remittances, a $685 billion annual flow to developing countries that today cost an average of 6.4 percent to send, are a prime candidate for cheaper, faster digital corridors, the paper says, potentially saving billions for low-income families. At the same time, banks could see core deposit and payment revenues hollowed out if central banks offer retail digital accounts or if corporate treasuries shift to stablecoins for liquidity and settlement. The report warns that stablecoin issuers will face hefty compliance bills, running into millions annually, and that privacy, cybersecurity and legal frameworks will be the battlegrounds of the next phase.
For the Gulf, the calendar feels immediate: the Venom researchers single out the UAE’s Digital Dirham as one of the most likely near-term retail launches, and they say regional regulators’ clarity and infrastructure investments have made Asia and MENA natural leaders in the shift to digital cash. Whether that means a gentler evolution of existing institutions or a wholesale rewriting of the financial stack depends on policy choices, technology standards and how quickly people and businesses embrace tokenised money.
The study is emphatic about timing: “the next 24-36 months will be particularly critical,” it says, as multiple economies move from pilots to commercial deployments and as private token issuers scale under new rules. The authors close with a sober reminder: the opportunity to lower costs, expand financial inclusion and spur innovation is real, but only if privacy, security and robust governance are built into these new monetary rails from the start.
The Venom Foundation’s full analysis and data tables are available in its full report, which the authors say synthesizes central bank publications, BIS and IMF analysis, and industry forecasts through November 2025. Readers should treat projections as conditional, dependent on regulation, technology choices and geopolitical shifts, but if even a portion of the scenarios play out, the way we think about money may look very different by the end of the decade.
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