India's e₹ Just Crossed 10 Million Users. Its Cross-Border Ambitions Matter More.
Published 30 June 2026 · Updated 5 July 2026
India's e₹ retail pilot has reached roughly 10 million users as of April 2026, up from about 6 million a year earlier — even as the total value of digital rupees in circulation actually fell 24%, from ₹1,016.5 crore to ₹771.7 crore over the same period. That's not a contradiction so much as a currency still finding its footing: more people are trying it, but not necessarily holding meaningful balances in it day to day. What's genuinely new is where the RBI is pointing it next.
From retail curiosity to welfare infrastructure
February 2026 saw the RBI launch a programmable e₹ pilot for Gujarat's Public Distribution System — beneficiaries receive digital rupees that can only be redeemed at Fair Price Shops, a form of built-in spending restriction a physical rupee can't easily replicate. Days later, a similar CBDC-based food subsidy pilot launched in Puducherry under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, run jointly with PFMS and Canara Bank. This is the e₹ doing something a stablecoin or private cryptocurrency structurally can't: functioning as programmable sovereign money for targeted government disbursement.
The cross-border piece, which is where this gets relevant to investment migration
The RBI has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Monetary Authority of Singapore on digital asset collaboration, and has held bilateral discussions with the Central Bank of the UAE toward an operational cross-border CBDC pilot — with the RBI's own annual report noting plans to operationalize further bilateral pilots in 2026-27. Unlike the UAE's mBridge membership, India is pursuing bilateral corridors rather than joining a shared multi-CBDC platform — a different architecture aimed at a similar outcome.
Why we're watching this specific corridor
India and the UAE are ImmiCrypt's two home markets (see About) — not by coincidence, but because they're two of the most advanced sovereign digital currency programs already in direct dialogue with each other. Neither program has to invent cross-border settlement from scratch; both are actively building toward it, through different technical paths that may eventually converge. See our Government & CBDC partnerships page for how ImmiCrypt is positioned to plug into whichever path goes live first.