Indonesia — Bank Indonesia announced in October 2025 that the digital rupiah will integrate stablecoin mechanics — backing the CBDC with tokenized government bonds. Phase two of the pilot completed technical standards for a permissioned DLT network. Plans include issuing digital securities as tokenized versions of government bonds, creating a sovereign stablecoin.
This hybrid model is globally innovative: rather than a pure CBDC or a private stablecoin, Indonesia is building a central bank-issued digital currency with the yield-bearing, bond-backed characteristics of stablecoins. For a country with 270 million people — many unbanked — this could democratize access to government debt instruments while providing programmable money for welfare distribution.
The broader ASEAN context matters: if Indonesia's digital rupiah succeeds, it creates interoperability questions with the existing cross-border QR payment network (QRIS). The prospect of programmable, bond-backed sovereign currencies across ASEAN could eventually challenge both SWIFT's dominance in regional settlements and the US dollar's role as the default trade currency.