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Definition: Project Hamilton


A research project undertaken by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and Massachusetts Institute of Technology to test the feasibility of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) for the U.S.

Launched in 2020, Project Hamilton is a proof-of-concept that creates a digital dollar card to serve as a debit card for everything. A major goal is to process hundreds of thousands of transactions per second and complete each one in only a few seconds. This is not a cryptocurrency because Project Hamilton is centralized.

Disaster Warnings Are Legion
Dire warnings of the government tracking every payment that citizens make are widely published in right wing media. Claims of America becoming a surveillance state like China are voluminous with the U.S. government penalizing people for making purchases deemed politically inappropriate. See CBDC.

A U.S. CBDC; Not so Fast!
The project has been completed and the research results were made available; however, in January 2025, President Trump issued an executive order banning all work on a U.S. central bank digital currency. Trump is a proponent of cryptocurrencies, having issued his own $TRUMP token on the Solana blockchain. The First Lady also has an official "Melania Meme" with the $MELANIA symbol. See Trump tokens and cryptocurrency.