India’s Digital Rupee (Central Bank Digital Currency) must have anonymity built into it to avoid surveillance, Infosys Co-founder Nandan Nilekani told Economic Times. He added that it will be concerning if all payment transactions are recorded and visible. Nilekani also said that the country was on the right path by acknowledging the concept of digital assets and taxing them at 30 percent. He said that it was a tacit way of confirming that cryptos are not currencies but commodities, as they store value, which one can buy and sell. “The idea is that India takes a lead both for wholesale transactions as well as for retail. The existing rails that India has laid (can) be used to accelerate the digital rupee”, (which) is “a better option than creating stablecoins,” he was quoted as saying. The 66-year-old warned that stablecoins will be unstable if ever there is a run on that currency because people are not clear about whether the reserves behind those stablecoins are adequate in case everybody wants to convert it to real dollars, ET reported. Nandan Nilekani has worked closely with the government on Aadhaar and is part of several government committees. His comments raise an important question about whether CBDCs will be misused by the government to target dissidents and if privacy in electronic payments has to be compromised for regulatory compliance. It must be noted that the Indian government is currently testing various use cases of CBDCs and has not yet released details of its plan to…
