A Russian official argued that the country should have launched research on a central bank digital currency four years ago in order to claim leadership in the field. However, according to Dmitry Peskov, a special representative of the President of the Russian Federation on digital and technological development, the first-mover advantage also brings a number of risks in terms of financial stability. According to news service RBC on Oct. 23, Peskov said that a fast-second strategy in developing a CBDC could be more efficient than becoming the world’s first issuer, stating: “The financial risk is so great that it seems …

Anatoly Aksakov, the head of the Russian parliament’s Financial Markets committee, had some good news for blockchain fans in Russia. According to Aksakov, there are “no anti-blockchain voices” in the government and he believes that a digital ruble pilot will start in 2021. During a panel held on October 21 as part of the Blockchain Life 2021 conference, the policymaker said that the central bank had already started consultations on the feasibility of launching ‘cryptoruble’ pilots. He considers it “the future of all our money circulation.” Local media reports have pointed out the possibility of seeing a digital ruble in …

Russia's public officials will be mandated to declare all private crypto assets holdings from New Year’s Day, 2021. The requirements were announced on Oct. 20 by the office of Russian prosecutor general, Igor Krasnov, following a meeting with 15 fellow prosecutor generals representing member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). “Starting next year, civil servants will be required to declare [virtual] currencies on an equal basis with other assets,” Krasnov said. In 2018, Russia’s labor ministry announced that public officials would not need to declare virtual asset holdings in their tax reports due to the unregulated status of crypto. …

Cryptocurrency investment is one of the most popular investment tools in Russia, according to a new report. The World Gold Council, a major market development organization for the gold industry, released a report on retail gold insights in Russia on Tuesday. According to the report, cryptocurrency is currently the fifth-most popular investment tool in Russia after savings accounts, foreign currencies, real estate and life insurance. As part of the World Gold Council's rankings of Russian investments made in the past 12 months, cryptocurrency is followed by gold, accounting for 17% and 16%, respectively. The report is based on a survey …

Last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping, declared that China has plans to become carbon neutral by 2060, calling for a “green revolution.” If the plan is properly implemented, it could help China to finally shed its biggest-polluter status and significantly improve the global ecosystem, which could also drastically shake up the country’s eminent Bitcoin (BTC) mining industry. The most well-known mining hub of China is the Southern province of Sichuan, which has an abundant hydroelectricity sector. However, the electricity there is especially cheap only during the wet season, which takes place between May and September. Outside of that period, most …

Editor’s note Blockchain technology has attracted regulatory attention since its inception. The security of the Bitcoin network despite the value of BTC in play has consistently proved the resilience of blockchain technology in maintaining records across a vast range of parties. However, many countries have determined that Bitcoin doesn’t behave as a currency at all, or at least not a replacement for their own. The nations behind the world’s most-used fiat currencies have in many cases pointed to Bitcoin’s volatility as a critical flaw. They have decided that the rise of stablecoins, especially over the past two years, poses a …

A number of financial institutions in Russia have expressed interest in testing the country’s central bank digital currency, or CBDC. According to an Oct. 16 report by local news agency Izvestia, at least five Russian banks are interested in taking part in Russia’s non-public digital ruble pilots in the first half of 2021. The list of banks includes state-backed Promsvyazbank, the Credit Bank of Moscow, commercial bank Zenit, mortgage bank Dom.RF, and Crimea’s Russian National Commercial Bank. As reported, the latter wants to be actively involved in the first pilots in order to provide Crimea with the “most innovative banking …

The central bank of Russia proposed to set limits on annual cryptocurrency investments by non-professional investors. The Bank of Russia suggested that unqualified investors in Russia should not be allowed to invest more than 600,000 Russian rubles ($7,800) in digital assets per year. The authority laid out the new proposal in an explanatory note referring to Russia’s newly passed crypto law, “On Digital Financial Assets,” or DFA. The official statement stipulates that the new regulatory restriction will involve not only digital financial assets but also “other digital rights”: “Individuals representing unqualified investors will have a limit on the amount of …

Russian financial authorities have confirmed the government’s purported plans to issue the central bank digital currency, or CBDC. On Oct. 13, the Bank of Russia released a consultation paper on the development of the digital Russian ruble. In the statement, the central bank said that the digital ruble can become an “additional form of money alongside cash and non-cash.” The establishment of Russia’s CBDC project will require the creation of additional payment infrastructure, the bank said. The bank also said that the digital ruble will have “all the necessary properties to perform the functions of money.” The project’s timing will …

LocalBitcoins, a major peer-to-peer cryptocurrency exchange, is no longer available in Russia without using additional tools like a VPN. LocalBitcoins.net is officially blacklisted in Russia as local telecom regulator Roskomnadzor placed the URL on a register of platforms disseminating prohibited information. According to official data, the website was blacklisted on July 21, following an order of the Onezhsky City Court of the Arkhangelsk region. It’s not immediately clear when exactly Roskomnadzor limited the access to LocalBitcoins’ website. Some local reports claim that LocalBitcoins users in Russia began to experience difficulties in accessing the website in late September 2020. LocalBitcoins has …

Russian businessman and self-styled “ex-oligarch” Aleksandr Lebedev is backing a new decentralized finance project that aims to compete across a broad spectrum of financial products. As reported by Russian financial publication RBC, Lebedev is providing the initial funding for a DeFi startup under the working name of InDeFinEco, standing for Independent Decentralized Finance Ecosystem. Lebedev said to have invested between $10 and $15 million as initial funding. The founder of Russian exchange Garantex, Sergey Mendeleev, is said to be his business partner in this venture. Lebedev said that “DeFi does not require serious investment from a development standpoint,” and most …

Authorities in Russia appear to be going after Binance — the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange — as its domain is now in the list of prohibited websites in the country. On Sept. 24, Binance officially announced on its Russian Telegram channel that Russian telecom regulator Roskomnadzor has added the website to the register of platforms disseminating prohibited information. According to the announcement, Binance has been placed in the list due to distribution of data related to the acquisition of digital currencies like Bitcoin (BTC). Gleb Kostarev, Binance’s head of operations for Russia and the CIS, told Cointelegraph that the exchange …