China’s mBridge Hits $55B in Cross-Border Payments as Digital Yuan Surges

What Is Driving mBridge’s Sudden Scale?

China’s cross-border central bank digital currency platform, Project mBridge, has processed more than $55.5 billion in cumulative transactions, according to Atlantic Council data cited by Reuters. That figure represents a roughly 2,500-fold rise since 2022 and places mBridge among the most active live experiments in wholesale CBDC settlement.

The platform has handled over 4,000 cross-border transactions to date, with China’s digital yuan accounting for about 95% of total settlement volume. Participating central banks include those from mainland China, Hong Kong, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, creating a corridor that links Asian and Middle Eastern trade flows.

The growth reflects Beijing’s push to build payment rails that operate outside dollar-centric systems, particularly for cross-border trade and wholesale settlement. While mBridge remains a limited network rather than a , its recent volumes show it has moved beyond pilot scale.

Investor Takeaway

Why Does the Digital Yuan Dominate the Platform?

The digital yuan’s share of mBridge activity mirrors its growing role at home. The recently reported that the e-CNY has processed more than 3.4 billion domestic transactions worth about $2.4 trillion, an increase of over 800% from 2023, according to Reuters.

A regulatory change that took effect on Jan. 1 has also altered the nature of the digital yuan. Commercial interest on e-CNY holdings, moving it from a cash-like instrument toward what authorities describe as a digital deposit currency. That shift makes the e-CNY more suitable for wholesale use, liquidity management, and institutional settlement.

Within mBridge, the digital yuan’s dominance suggests that China is using the platform primarily to extend its own currency infrastructure outward, rather than as a neutral, multi-currency hub. Other participating central banks appear to be testing interoperability and settlement mechanics rather than driving volume.

What Changed later than the BIS Exit?

The exited Project mBridge in October 2024, a move that surprised many observers given the BIS’s ahead role in coordinating the project. BIS General Manager Agustín Carstens described the departure as a “graduation,” while also pushing back against claims that the platform could be used to bypass sanctions.

“mBridge is not the BRICS bridge,” Carstens said, viewking to distance the project from geopolitical narratives that framed it as a sanctions-avoidance tool. Even so, the timing of the exit underlined growing unease among Western policymakers about parallel outside established frameworks.

Since leaving mBridge, the BIS has shifted its attention to Project Agorá, a separate initiative involving seven Western central banks, including the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Bank of England, and the . Reuters that Agorá is stepping up testing, setting the stage for a more explicit East–West split in wholesale CBDC experimentation.

Investor Takeaway

Does mBridge Threaten Dollar Dominance?

Despite its rapid growth, mBridge remains far smaller than global dollar payment networks. Its transaction count and volumes are concentrated among a small group of central banks and are heavily skewed toward the digital yuan. That limits its immediate impact on the .

Still, the direction of travel is clear. mBridge shows how central banks can settle cross-border transactions directly on shared ledgers, reducing reliance on correspondent banking and dollar-clearing infrastructure. Over time, that could reshape how regional .

“Project mBridge is unlikely to challenge dollar dominance directly, but it may incrementally erode it,” Atlantic Council researcher Alisha Chhangani wrote. The effect, if it materializes, would likely be gradual and uneven, tied to trade relationships rather than global reserve dynamics.

For now, mBridge stands as the most advanced live example of a multi-CBDC settlement system in operation. Whether it becomes a template for others—or a regional tool aligned closely with China’s currency strategy—will depend on how widely other central banks choose to use it and how rapidly rival projects mature.