## 5 Discussion and Directions for Future Research  
Currency use has diminished in many developed countries. For example, in Sweden, cash payments in retail purchases fell from 40% to 15% between 2010 and 2016 [78]. Consequently, numerous countries are investigating the possibility of issuing digital currencies as future alternatives to cash. In addition, pilot programs are being tested in a few nations to evaluate how central bank-issued digital currencies might work if introduced. We used structural equation modeling to examine the effect of ten variables, namely, countries' technological readiness, sustainable development goal rank, corruption perception index, corruption control, regulatory quality, democracy level, economic freedom, Gini coefficient, human development index, and foreign currency reserve across 67 countries, to understand the nonlinear association of these factors with the status of CBDC adoption in the respective countries. Various studies have highlighted the relationship between countries' technological and environmental factors/policies and their technology adoption preferences. Particularly, a country's network readiness has been reported to positively influence how rapidly it embraces new technology [32]. Environmental factors such as SDG implementation by country have also been found to influence the adoption of new technology [79; 80]. Essentially, the World Bank and the United Nations have recognized financial inclusion as a key factor contributing to the achievement of seven of the 17 SDGs [34]. In addition, some studies have indicated that CBDC adoption by countries can potentially promote green finance and accelerate the achievement of universal financial inclusion [37; 38]. Furthermore, human development has been extensively researched and is considered a major determinant of a country's ability to adopt new technologies and technologically advance [49; 63]. However, as shown in Table 4, we did not find a statistically significant relationship between countries' technological readiness, sustainable development goal ranking, human development index, corruption control, and foreign currency reserves with the current state of countries' CBDC adoption. Our results did not confirm the assertion that these factors are crucial determinants of a country's adoption of technology [33; 34; 36]. This may be because CBDC technology is still in its early stages and there are still uncertainties regarding its technological aspects and ethical framework, such as conformity with privacy regulations and individual rights. Figure 4: A graphic illustration of the relationship between the country’s regulatory strength and the adoption of CBDCs. On the other hand, as shown in Figure 1, our results revealed that there is a statistically significant relationship between countries' CBDC adoption status with regulatory quality, level of democracy, corruption perception index, and income disparity. These findings align with previous reports that have found legal factors to be crucial elements in the adoption of new technologies. For instance, [PERSON] [50] reported that in contrast to authoritarian regimes, democratic governments promote widespread Internet access to bridge society's digital divide. Moreover, as illustrated in Table 4, a negative coefficient is found for regulatory quality and the economic freedom index, which is in strong agreement with previous findings that countries with higher economic freedom and regulatory quality follow various formalities and administrative processes before adopting new technology [54; 55; 56]. This is because these countries prioritize individual data protection rights, which remains a primary concern in the applications of blockchain technology such as CBDCs [57; 58]. This may explain the delay in the adoption of CBDCs in such countries.