system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: If digital money can be hidden (like in offshore accounts), how do we know it can't be digitally counterfeited?

If it's hard to track, wouldn't it be easyish to manipulate?
gpt
If you're talking about bitcoin, you've missed the mechanism.  Bitcoins can't be counterfeited because there is a log of who's owned every single one since it was mined.  The log can be checked by anyone, it's the opposite of "hidden".

What's not disclosed in the digital money solution is which "human" owns which "wallet".  Everyone agrees how many bitcoins are in each wallet, but nobody knows who owns which wallet.  When you read about digital money being stolen, it's when a different human manages to claim ownership of the money in a wallet by discovering the secret cryptographic key used to prove "I own this wallet".

This is different than offshore accounts, where the offshore bank knows you are the owner and won't tell your government.  (By the way, there isn't as much protection here as you'd think from watching TV and movies.)  With a digital wallet, nobody but you knows that you own the wallet.  If you don't tell, and don't leave the key around, there is nobody who is capable of disclosing your identity.  This is much better than having someone know and hoping they won't tell.