In April, the Bank of Japan aims to launch a new trial for its central bank digital currency (CBDC) initiative, crypto media outlet CryptoPotato reported on February 18.

The bank plans to evaluate the CBDCs' "technical feasibility," which has not been achievable in past experiments, as well as learn more about how private enterprises are using digital money. The study will also investigate the technical issues of linking the experimental CBDC network to current financial networks, as well as determining the best data models and architecture for allowing offline payments.

On the other hand, the Bank of Russia's central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital ruble, is ready for its pilot phase, said the bank's deputy governor Skorobogatova. The concept will be released for individual peer-to-peer transfers as well as retail transactions. "The pilot will operate on actual operations for real individuals, but only for a limited number of them," she added.

Furthermore, the pilot was supposed to go live in 2021, but some in the Russian banking sector were concerned that building infrastructure for the digital ruble would be costly for lenders and would make the financial system more centralized and less varied. Afterward, the Bank of Russia committed to changing the concept so that it does not harm the old system.