Just another blockchain.

 "Digital Rupee or eRe, is India's Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)" "offering features similar to physical cash like convenience of use, guarantee of RBI, finality of settlement etc. eRe is stored in the user's digital wallet and can be used to receive / send money, and / or make payment for transactions, just like any physical Re note." rbi.org.in. Digital currency saves the cost of printing currency notes and is easy to trace, thereby allowing tax officials to stamp down on tax avoidance. "The financial outlay for security printing surged by almost 25% in the fiscal year 2024-25, reaching Rs 63.728 billion, compared to Rs 51.014 billion the previous year." ET. "CBDC operates on a secure, transparent blockchain network, and it uses an immutable record of all transactions. This means that all transactions are recorded on a decentralized ledger, making it impossible to modify or tamper with data." ibm.com. Transparent it may be, but safe it is not. Hackers got into the cloud storage of a UK couple "where they kept information about their crypto wallets (also based on blockchain), and how to access them. In February 2024, after a small test transfer, the criminals sent all the couple's coins to their own digital wallets in a swift and silent attack." "2025 was a bumper year for crypto criminals, with total thefts standing at more than $3.4bn, according to investigators at Blockchain analysis firms Chainalysis." BBC. If North Korean hackers attack CBDC wallets of Indian citizens can the RBI block or reverse the transactions? What if they attack the RBI itself? In February 2026, "Government of India launches CBDC-based Digital Food Currency pilot for Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) in Puducherry." pib.gov.in. The National Payments Corporation of India has created a Unified Payments Interface (UPI) instant payment transfers, which "facilitates inter-bank peer-to-peer (P2P) transfers and person-to- merchant transactions (P2M). wikipedia. However, India's currency in circulation (CiC) climbed to Rs 40 trillion in late 2025 and early 2026. Simultaneously, UPI payments have also reached a record high of Rs 28 trillion - 70% of CiC. This may be because people are spending more after reductions in income tax and GST rates, wrote Soumya Kanti Ghosh & Tapa Parida. Perhaps, not so simple. First, small traders have shifted to cash after receiving notices from tax authorities who traced UPI transactions. Second an "explosive growth of unconditional cash transfers, estimated at 2% of GDP across 15 states." Third, distribution of cash to bribe voters before state and national elections. And fourth, people use UPI for small transactions but cash for privacy of use, wrote Ajit Ranade. Since politicians are using cash for elections people follow their example. At least UPI are small transactions, CBDC could wipe out entire bank accounts. It's just a cryptocurrency in another name. Just as risky. Cash is in hand.