Russian Bitcoin (BTC) miners are reportedly running as usual despite the government’s invasion of Ukraine this week. According to estimates from the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption index, miners in Russia accounted for around 11.2% of the global BTC hash rate as of August 2021. With sanctions on the Russian government coming from the U.S. and allied NATO nations, it is unclear how the local BTC sector and the broader market will be impacted. While some crypto mining firms such as Ethereum focused Flexpool have halted their services in Russia in response to the invasion, BTC miners Compass Mining confirmed to …

In the event of harsh Western sanctions, Russians’ savings could be confiscated, according to Nikolai Arefiev, a member of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and vice-chairman of the Duma’s committee on economic policy. The Russian government can potentially seize about 60 trillion rubles ($750 billion) worth of people’s deposits should Western nations decide to block all of Russia’s foreign funds, Arefiev said in an interview with the local news agency NEWS.ru on Monday. “If all the foreign funds are blocked, the government will have no other choice but to seize all the deposits of the population, or 60 …

Russia’s Ministry of Finance has upped the stakes in its drawn-out showdown against the country’s Central Bank by formally introducing a bill that proposes to regulate digital assets rather than banning them. On Feb. 21, the Ministry introduced a draft of the federal law “On digital currency” to the government. This stage of the legislative process precedes the bill’s introduction to the parliament for consideration. The agency cited the “formation of a legal marketplace for digital currencies, along with determining rules for their circulation and range of participants” as the rationale for the initiative. Emphasizing that the bill does not …

On Feb. 18, the Russian Ministry of Finance kicked off public consultations on the rules of cryptocurrency issuance and transactions. While a welcome development, it is less than the country’s crypto space had expected to get. Earlier in the week, the government announced that by Feb. 18, a bill containing the finance ministry and central bank’s consolidated position on crypto regulation would be drafted. Updated estimates suggest that it will take at least another month for draft legislation to see the light. The main reason for the delay appears to be the central bank’s renewed resistance, which just several days …

The Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation has officially initiated work on the country’s cryptocurrency regulation bill, filing the first public notice on the federal legal portal. Russia’s finance ministry on Thursday filed two development notices announcing the start of the process of developing a legal framework for activities related to transactions with digital currencies and their issuance. The first notice, called “On Digital Currency,” informs about the government launching a public consultation on rules for digital asset transactions, inviting proposals from financial market participants, citizens and legal entities. The second notice details a similar process for possible amendments …

Banning cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) is impossible, Russia’s finance minister Anton Siluanov declared as the Bank of Russia keeps calling on the state to ban crypto in the country. Placing a ban on crypto in Russia is the “same as banning the internet, which is impossible,” Siluanov declared at the ministry’s briefing with the central bank, Forbes Russia reported Wednesday. The finance minister reportedly said that starting regulating the cryptocurrency industry as soon as possible is way better than banning it as this would allow the government to finally monitor the market and grow the country's budget using taxes from …

Amid more reports on the Bank of Russia rejecting the finance ministry’s proposal of cryptocurrency regulation, the central bank has kicked off trials of its own digital currency. The Russian central bank has officially launched the digital ruble trial, successfully completing the first central bank digital currency (CBDC) transfers among citizens, the Bank of Russia announced Tuesday. The launch aligns with the bank’s plans to debut the first digital ruble transactions in early 2022. Three banks out of 12 financial institutions in the digital ruble pilot group have already integrated the CBDC platform, with two of them completing a “full …

The government and central bank in Russia have reached an agreement on how to regulate cryptocurrencies, according to a Tuesday announcement. Russia's government and central bank are now working on a draft law that will define crypto as an "analogue of currencies" rather than digital financial assets, set to be launched on Feb. 18. Cryptocurrencies would function in the legal industry only if they have complete identification through the banking system or licensed intermediaries. Kommersant notes that Bitcoin (BTC) transactions and possession of cryptocurrency in the Russian Federation are not prohibited; however, they must be done through a "digital currency …

The Russian government is expected to collect up to 1 trillion rubles ($13 billion) in crypto tax each year, as per an estimation by the authorities. The Bell, a local Russian publication, reportedly got its hands on the government analytic note that estimated the yearly tax revenue. According to the letter's authors, Russians hold 12% or nearly $214 billion in crypto. The number of users on foreign exchanges is estimated to be about 10 million, added with the significant number of over-the-counter (OTC) crypto trades. The government agency believes even the most straightforward tax imposition can generate anywhere from 146 …

The Bank of Russia has registered tokenization service Atomyze as the country’s first digital asset management company, the central bank officially announced Thursday. According to the announcement, the Bank of Russia has formally deemed the rules of the company’s information system and the platform’s technical implementation as being compliant with the Russian law. The registration enables Atomyze to provide its clients with an opportunity to issue digital financial assets, or DFA, on its platform as well as obtain “new types of assets in the tokenized form.” The organization will be also enabled to “independently carry out exchange operations within its …

Russian citizens reportedly own 16.5 trillion rubles ($214 billion) worth of cryptocurrencies, according to government estimates. A Bloomberg report noted that Russians own about 12% of the total global crypto holdings. The crypto holdings estimates were calculated by analyzing IP addresses of some of the most significant crypto exchange users in the country along with a few other data points, said two people working with Kremlin. The crypto holdings analysis of Russian citizens is being carried out to get an overview of the crypto market and formulate new regulations. The proposals are yet to be finalized. The estimates are believed …

One of the most fascinating implications of the collision between traditional political institutions and the crypto space is how it can reveal the glaring lack of cohesion within power systems that otherwise look monolithic. Digital assets reside in a parallel policy dimension where neither a centralized consensus nor a clear rulebook exists, leading to a surprising variety of voices and opinions emerging in the absence of a politically coordinated course. Last week, a rare lively policy debate broke out in Russia in the aftermath of its central bank’s attempt to promote a hardline stance on crypto. One does not often …