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 …

Following sweeping crackdowns by China against Bitcoin mining activity, the United States has now emerged as the leading nation in terms of hash rate. According to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI), Bitcoin (BTC) miners in the U.S. account for 35.4% of the total global BTC mining hash rate distribution. The CBECI data also shows Kazakhstan (18%) and Russia (11%) as the next major Bitcoin mining centers outside the United States. These three nations have gained significant market share in the wake of China’s crypto mining ban. Back in June, Cointelegraph reported that BTC.com, one of the largest Chinese …

While Russia continues to enforce a ban on cryptocurrency payments as part of a law that took effect in January, the country has no plans at this time to completely prohibit trading by its citizens. According to a Tuesday report from local news agency Interfax, Alexey Moiseev, the deputy finance minister of the Russian Federation, said he believes Russian citizens will continue to be allowed to buy and use cryptocurrencies outside the country on foreign exchanges without the threat of legal action at home. Crypto payments in the country are currently banned, but Russians have been allowed to purchase and …

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 …

A few months ago, the crypto industry was shaken up by the news of the mass exodus of miners from China. At the end of May 2021, it became known that the Chinese authorities were going to ban Bitcoin (BTC) mining, bringing the already existing regulatory pressure on miners to a breaking point. The list of banned operations includes purchasing cryptocurrencies, as well as any related investment activities, crypto trading and exchange. The People’s Bank of China had held substantive consultations with banks and payment systems and then the largest Chinese financial institutions were told to stop speculative trading — …

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 …