India's outgoing Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor has trumpeted the country's status as a "pioneer" in the central bank digital currency (CBDC) space, noting its broad reach among millions of Indian investors.

"RBI, among the central banks, is a pioneer," Shaktikanta Das said during a recent farewell speech. "As I see it, CBDC has a huge potential in the coming years, in the future. In fact, it is the future of currency."

India began piloting its CBDC in 2022, and saw meteoric growth, with more than 5 million investors and 400,000 merchants in the country experimenting with the digital rupee.

The central bank has focused on the utility of the program, and has prioritized offline payments and programmability for the CBDC. Despite early success, the RBI is focusing on understanding the CBDC's long-term impact on users, the country's monetary policy, and the broader impact on the South Asian country's financial system.

With 115 million crypto investors, India boasts the world's highest number of crypto users, according to Chainalysis' 2024 Global Crypto Adoption Index.

The country has maintained its dominance in the crypto space in spite of high taxation - the government levied a controversial 30% capital gains tax on crypto in 2022, alongside a 1% transaction tax. While this drove an exodus of crypto developers and engineers to nearby jurisdictions - one of India's largest crypto exchanges, WazirX, saw its founders relocate to Dubai - the country's number of crypto users continues to grow.

Other countries like China have also reached significant milestones with their CBDC, with the digital yuan logging about $1 trillion (RMB 7.3 trillion) in transaction volume earlier this year.