Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska has once again called on the Russian government to stop ignoring Bitcoin (BTC) after the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation raided his homes in Washington and New York. In a Telegram post on Thursday, Deripaska argued that the Bank of Russia has been “infantile in ignoring the growing cryptocurrency market,” while the U.S. Department of the Treasury has been “investing particularly in this direction.” The billionaire emphasized that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have massive potential to not only help Russia avoid U.S. sanctions but also weaken the U.S. dollar, stating: “The U.S. had realized long ago …

The Russian government is considering a new project to mine Bitcoin (BTC) with associated petroleum gas. Vasiliy Shpak, deputy minister of Industry and Trade of Russia, has reportedly filed a proposal with the Russian central bank and the Ministry of Digital Development to use the country’s oil field equipment for mining cryptocurrency. According to a report by Kommersant, the proposal was filed on Sept. 7, asking the government to provide its feedback on an initiative originally coming from local oil and gas companies. The firms specifically proposed to use associated gas to power nearby data centers for mining Bitcoin. This …

The central bank of Russia is trying to evaluate the amount of Bitcoin (BTC) held by local investors amid a massive amount of money not returning to banks following the pandemic-fueled withdrawals. According to Elizaveta Danilova, head of the central bank’s financial stability department, the Bank of Russia is polling local cryptocurrency investors to estimate cryptocurrency investment volumes in Russia. “We need to work both on data and raising public awareness about the risks of such investments, which are backed by nothing,” Danilova said in a Reuters interview published on the Bank of Russia’s official website on Thursday. The official …

Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that it’s “still premature” to use cryptocurrencies for settling trades of energy resources such as oil. The Russian president discussed potential use cases of cryptocurrencies in a Thursday CNBC interview following a plenary session of the Russian Energy Week forum. According to a full interview text published on the Kremlin’s official website, Putin said that private cryptocurrencies “can act as a unit of account,” but they are “very unstable.” “Cryptocurrency oil contracts? It’s too early to talk about it. It works for transferring funds from one place to another, but in terms of trading, especially …

Anatoly Aksakov, chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on Financial Markets, argued that Russia needs to adopt new laws to protect retail investors from the potential losses of investing in crypto, local news agency Interfax reported on Wednesday. To this end, lawmakers in the country’s parliament are reportedly considering new legislation to limit cryptocurrency investments by non-accredited investors, he stated. The official delivered his remarks during a Bank of Russia-backed event devoted to financial consumer protection. “Digital currencies are subject to our enhanced focus, and we will look to provide maximum protection for our citizens who invest in digital …

BBC Russia has reported that Dmitry Vasiliev, the former chief of Russian cryptocurrency exchange Wex, has been arrested in Warsaw, Poland. Wex, which was previously known as BTC-e, was a well-known "dark" exchange in the early days of the cryptocurrency industry. It is alleged to have laundered funds for numerous high-profile crypto hacks, including the notorious Mt. Gox incident. Although Vasiliev is regarded as innocent within Poland's jurisdiction, other countries such as Kazakhstan have an open fraud case against the elusive figure and as such, have reportedly engaged in discussions surrounding the possibility of extradition. It is understood that Vasiliev …

BitRiver, the largest cryptocurrency mining colocation services provider in Russia, is unlikely to be affected by a new crypto crackdown from the Bank of Russia, according to the firm’s CEO. On Wednesday, the Russian central bank announced that the authority has started working with local banks in order to slow down payments to cryptocurrency exchanges. Sergey Shvetsov, the first deputy governor at the Bank of Russia, reportedly said that the regulator is now considering amending the law to “more clearly prohibit the use of cryptocurrency” and introduce additional administrative and criminal liabilities. While Shvetsov did not clarify what kind of …

As cryptocurrency investments get more popular in Russia, the country’s central bank is actively working to curb perceived suspicious crypto activity as well as block some crypto purchases. The Bank of Russia has started working with local banks to make them halt payments to cryptocurrency exchanges in order to protect customers from “emotional” purchases of crypto. Sergey Shvetsov, the first deputy governor at the Bank of Russia, argued that the new measures aim to protect Russian investors from potential losses in case the cryptocurrency market “crashes to zero,” local news agency RIA Novosti reported Wednesday. The latest anti-crypto move comes …

As Russian cryptocurrency advocates are working to attract global crypto mining operators, local lawmakers have gotten more serious about regulating the industry. Anatoly Aksakov, chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on Financial Markets, claimed that Russian lawmakers are now considering recognizing the crypto mining industry as a form of entrepreneurship under local business laws, TASS news agency reported on Wednesday. “As this [crypto mining] is a type of entrepreneurial activity, it is obviously necessary to include it into the state register, to regulate it as a type of entrepreneurship under an appropriate code, and impose relevant taxation,” Aksakov said. …

Despite the Russian state maintaining a mostly unfriendly stance on cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), a major state-backed museum is benefiting from the industry by raising hundreds of thousands of dollars with nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. The Russian State Hermitage Museum, the largest museum in the world, has finished its first auction on the NFT platform by Binance — the world's largest crypto exchange — selling five tokenized collectibles depicting masterpieces from artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Vincent van Gogh. The auction included five NFT copies of Hermitage-hosted artworks, including Wassily Kandinsky’s "Composition VI," Giorgione’s "Judith," Da Vinci’s "The Madonna …

Amid El Salvador officially accepting Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender on Tuesday, Sept. 7, the Russian government has reiterated its negative stance to a scenario where BTC could be accepted as an official currency. Dmitry Peskov, the official representative of Russian President Vladimir Putin, claimed that Russia has no reason to recognize Bitcoin as legal tender, local news agency RIA Novosti reported on Tuesday. The Kremlin representative argued that putting cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin in line with traditional money instruments would bring nothing but detriments to the country’s financial and economic system. “Clearly, Russia is not ready for such moves,” Peskov …

Sber, the largest banking institution in Russia, continues progressing with the development of its blockchain-based platform for issuing digital assets. Anatoly Popov, deputy chairman of the executive board at Sber, said that the bank is planning to have registered its digital asset issuance platform with the Bank of Russia — the country’s central bank — by mid-September, local news agency TASS reported on Thursday. Popov said that Sber has started building functionalities to allows third parties to issue digital assets and expects to have rolled out this feature by the end of the year. At the time being, the bank …