At a videoconference meeting with members of the government on January 26, Putin said that he was acquainted with the discussions around cryptocurrency legislation. According to the Russian President, the regulator’s stance is motivated by the fact that expansion of this sort of business poses risks to Russians, given the extreme volatility of cryptocurrencies.
Russia needs to agree on the issue
In addition, the President continued by stating that he had urged the administration and the Central Bank to reach an agreement on this matter and report back to him on the outcome. The Bank of Russia published a report last week which called for a ban on cryptocurrency mining in the nation, the use of the Russian financial market’s infrastructure for cryptocurrency transactions, and financial institutions’ investments in cryptocurrencies and associated products. In particular, the regulator estimates that the state controls at least 11% of the world’s processing power utilized for Bitcoin mining.
