Following Russia’s crypto crackdown, the country’s largest data centre operators aren’t really worried. According to the CEO of BitRiver, a new crypto crackdown by the Bank of Russia is unlikely to damage the company.
The Russian central bank stated on Wednesday that it has begun collaborating with local banks to slow payments to cryptocurrency exchanges.
According to reports, the Bank of Russia’s first deputy governor, Sergey Shvetsov, is considering modifying the law to “more clearly prohibit the use of cryptocurrency” and establish new administrative and criminal liabilities.
While Shvetsov did not specify which types of crypto transactions would be limited as part of the new regulatory crackdown, the official did say that the bank wants to stop payments to crypto exchanges to safeguard clients from “emotional” crypto purchases.
Because BitRiver does not operate a crypto mining facility and instead supplies data centres for foreign corporations, new limits planned by Russia’s central bank are unlikely to harm any of its clients, according to BitRiver founder and CEO Igor Runets.
“We don’t transmit crypto to exchanges; we don’t have any of our own equipment, and this bank’s decision will have no impact on our clients because they operate in other jurisdictions,” Runets explained.
According to Runets, BitRiver has been anticipating strong crypto policies from the Russian government for some time and has advised its Russian clients to use BitRiver’s crypto data centres by forming a foreign corporation. “We don’t have any problems now,” Runets remarked.
“We occasionally hear from clients who want to establish a firm in Russia in order to make it easier to deliver equipment from abroad. But, even for them, the Bank of Russia is unconcerned because the cryptocurrency does not reach a Russian company’s account,” he noted.
The Bank of Russia’s new anti-crypto measures come just months after the country’s primary crypto statute, “On Digital Financial Assets,” was signed into law in January.
The central bank’s crackdown, according to Nikita Soshnikov, a former senior lawyer at Deloitte CIS, is part of a strategy to juxtapose private cryptocurrencies with the country’s central bank’s digital currency project, the digital ruble.
The Bank of Russia reaffirmed plans to launch a CBDC before 2030 as one of the country’s most important digitization projects on Monday.
“I anticipate fresh government documentation and legislative initiatives opposing ‘illegal’ crypto transactions,” Soshnikov predicted.
