Only for foreign trade: Bank of Russia stands against free crypto investment
The Russian government doesn’t want to enable Bitcoin for regular Russian people but exclusively for foreign trade entities. The Russian central bank is ready to consider allowing crypto currency use within the country but only as part of a legal experiment, governor Elvira Nabiullina said. “It’s possible to consider transactions through an authorized organization in the country as part of an experimental legal regime, but that would require a relevant law,” Nabiullina stated during a press conference of Bank of Russia on Dec. 16. The Bank of Russia’s only objection has always been that crypto cannot be used as a payment instrument, Nabiullina emphasized. She added that the central bank is also concerned about investor protection because the crypto market is highly volatile. While Russia formally does not prohibit its people from investing in crypto, the Bank of Russia believes that the mass adoption of crypto would inevitably lead to its use as a payment method, according to Bank of ...