India will increase efforts to promote its central bank digital currency (CBDC), Union Minister Piyush Goyal said at a government event in Doha.

Goyal said the digital rupee, backed by the Reserve Bank of India and piloted since late 2022, aims to speed up transactions, cut paper use, and offer more traceability than current banking systems.

He reiterated the government’s discouragement of private cryptocurrencies, which face high taxes but are not formally banned.

India is not planning new cryptocurrency laws, with officials citing concerns that regulation could grant legitimacy to private digital assets, according to a September Reuters report.

India ranked first in global cryptocurrency adoption for the second year in a row, leading in several metrics, a September Chainalysis report said.

🔗 Source: The Block