This report uniquely focuses on users, especially society’s most vulnerable, and is an interdisciplinary collaboration between the MIT Digital Currency Initiative↗︎ and Maiden Labs, funded by the Gates Foundation↗︎. Findings are drawn from:

 

• design research to identify the important open technical design choices and ways forward for CBDC;
   

• infrastructure research on existing money technologies to understand the broader public-private dynamics in which CBDC financial inclusion issues are centered; and
   

• fieldwork to understand the financial experiences of people in four low- and middle-income countries (India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Mexico) and the ways existing money technologies are failing them or helping them flourish.

For policymakers, technologists, financial-inclusion advocates, and social scientists interested in CBDCs’ risks and opportunities, this report's insights include concrete areas for focus, ideas for design directions, and recommendations for future research. It is a resource for anyone wishing to understand how we can design a digital currency that expands financial inclusion and operates in the public interest, rather than one that exacerbates or even creates a new digital divide for currency.