Russia Denies Any Possibility to Ban Cryptocurrencies

Sometimes, official confirmations help to increase the trust in the cryptocurrency world, as it happens now. Russia has given signals that there is no intention to ban cryptocurrencies in the country. The rising interest in Blockchain and cryptocurrencies have made it difficult to the government to ban them.

Furthermore, Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has strongly supported blockchain technology. He had meetings with Vitalik Buterin, he opened two cryptocurrency agencies in the country, he is planning a national cryptocurrency and several cities, like Moscow, are working with Blockchain technology.
Russia Not Banning Cryptocurrencies

According to a bill proposed by Russia’s Finance Ministry, there is an intention to regulate cryptocurrencies. But they are far from banning them. Moreover, licensed operators would be able to convert cryptocurrencies into rubles or foreign currencies.

Bloomberg reported about this situation as follows:

“Russia’s Finance Ministry published draft legislation to regulate operations using cryptocurrencies, putting it at offs with the central bank’s resistance to allowing their exchange into rubles and other currencies.”

It is important to mark that Russia will have elections as soon as in March. These developments may be directly link to a political campaign to gain support from different parts of the society interesting in these topics or directly affected.
In addition to it, a bill has ben submitted to the Russian parliament that would recognise the Cryptoruble, Russia’s national cryptocurrency as legal tender. But other digital assets would not be deemed as legal means of payment.

“Licensed operators would be able to validate conversion of cryptocurrencies, according to the bill. Digital assets themselves wouldn’t be deemed as legal means of payment in Russia, while the proposals also set out measures for domestic regulation of Initial Coin Offerings,” reads Bloomberg’s article.

At the moment, Russia is not thinking to ban cryptocurrencies, but giving them a framework where to operate. That legitimizes the environment and allows more investments in this sphere to keep growing as time passes. After the elections, we will see whether the government will push for harder regulations or not.