Russia plans its own national cryptocurrency

Russia’s federal financial monitoring service, Rosfinmonitoring, has announced that the country will soon have its own national cryptocurrency, according to the newspaper Kommersant.

No official proposal has yet been written to this effect, but the idea of a cryptocurrency is being discussed with bank representatives at sessions organized by the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank, said statistics secretary and deputy director of Rosfinmonitoring Pavel Livadny.

It is assumed that the Russian cryptocurrency will not be free of regulation like the Bitcoin. Instead, the currency will be issued officially by financial institutions and legally regulated.

Citizens will be able to exchange rubles or other currency for the cryptocurrency with the help of special electronic platforms. It will be obligatory to establish one’s identity before proceeding with an exchange, so as to minimize anonymous transfers.

The head of Russia’s Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, has repeatedly stated that the Bank would entertain the idea of introducing a cryptocurrency, but established her concerns that such a tool would make it easier to carry out suspicious transactions or even to finance terrorism. Head of Sberbank German Gref, however, has said cryptocurrency should not be banned in Russia.

In July 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that certain types of Bitcoin transactions are permissible in Russia.

In September 2015, the Russian payment system Qiwi began developing a cryptocurrency called the bitrubl, which it plans to release sometime in 2016, though no exact date has been specified.

Russia’s Ministry of Finance has composed several versions of a bill that would outlaw the issuing of monetary substitutes, including cryptocurrency. The latest version of the bill, drafted in March 2016, would make the issuing of monetary substitutes punishable by imprisonment for up to seven years.