In the aftermath of the private digital currencies’ revolution the debate on the costs/benefits of issuing a public digital currency gained prominence. This is a relevant public policy debate and, therefore, should not be led only by central bankers but also by academics. The aim of this paper is to discuss the properties and motivations of issuing a CBDC. A central bank-issued digital currency (CBDC) is a digital form of central bank money that differs from the current digital monetary forms made available by central banks–bank reserves and settlement accounts. When compared to other monetary forms (paper money, bank deposits, etc.) CBDC meets four key properties for a currency, which may be widely accessible, digital, central bank-issued, and token-based. Some countries have already launched guidelines and have been expanding their research and testing with digital currencies issued by their central banks, such as China (e-RMB), Brazil (Real Digital), and Sweden (e-krona). The conclusions indicate that the most relevant challenges for issuing a CBDC are: technical, operational limitations, legislative, and managerial barriers.