Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed his willingness to accept cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin as a means of moving payments.
The head of the central bank’s financial stability section is now assessing how much Bitcoin is held by local investors.
Elizaveta Danilova of the Bank of Russia is in the headlines today after revealing that she is checking in with local cryptocurrency investors to evaluate the country’s crypto investment level.
Danilova responded to concerns about the dangers of bubbles, sanctions, and cryptocurrency. She went on to say that owing to the lack of transparency, Russians‘ involvement in crypto is a “potentially very significant issue.” She went on to say,
“We need to work both on data and on raising citizens’ awareness of the risks of such investments – not backed by anything. We conduct a survey of market participants to get approximate estimates of investments in cryptocurrencies.”
This problem was raised when the CEO saw that citizens had been reluctant to deposit their money in banks recently.
Despite the COVID-19 epidemic subsiding, approximately 2.6 trillion rubles [$36 million] has not been repaid to the banks, according to Danilova. During the outbreak of the pandemic, the aforementioned sum was removed.
Meanwhile, such goods have done little to aid cryptos’ cause in Russia. People investing through foreign middlemen, according to the department’s chief, is a difficulty and a significant danger.
Putin, however, had a somewhat different viewpoint than regulators across the world. In a recent interview, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that cryptocurrency “has the right to exist and can be used as a payment method.”
Given the severity of the 2014 sanctions imposed in response to the invasion of Crimea, Putin accused the United States of using its currency as a weapon. In light of this, crypto may not appear to be a terrible choice.
In reality, China is already using its central bank’s digital currency to challenge the US dollar’s dominance. With Putin’s backing for such an initiative, we may soon see Russia take some regulatory actions.
However, the President emphasised that it is too early to discuss the use of digital assets for trading oil and other commodities, which make for the majority of Russia’s exports.
While the central bank assesses Russians’ crypto-investments, it has also urged the government to prohibit non-accredited investors’ crypto-investments. The executive decided that this is an effort to avoid “emotional” purchases.
