VTB Factoring, a subsidiary of Russia’s state-owned bank, reported the first major deal with digital finance assets. As part of the deal, the bank subsidiary acquired a tokenized debt pool of the engineering company Metrowagonmash, issued via the fintech platform Lighthouse. On Wednesday, June 29, VTB reported the deal on its webpage, claiming it to be the first issuance and placement of digital financial assets secured by cash in the Russian Federation. In the announcement, the bank compares it with the issue of short-term commercial bonds. Anton Musatov, CEO at VTB Factoring, emphasized the new technology’s potential regarding the access …

The Russian government continues to establish links with major players in the cryptocurrency mining industry despite staying skeptical about legalizing cryptocurrency trading and payments. Russia’s state-owned gas giant Gazprom Neft has entered into a partnership with BitRiver, the largest crypto-mining colocation services supplier in Russia providing hosting services for major crypto mining operations. Gazprom will provide BitRiver's partner data centers with electricity generated from the associated petroleum gas, the companies officially announced on June 16. As part of the collaboration, BitRiver will be developing a digital infrastructure based on the oil fields that Gazprom provides crypto mining services from the …

In the summer of 2021, the Chinese government banned Bitcoin (BTC) mining and cited the typical concerns of harmful environmental effects and money laundering. Now, the Chinese government is working toward establishing its own digital yuan currency. This raises the question as to whether the original reasoning was merely a Trojan horse. This ban could easily have been a huge blow to Bitcoin’s momentum. After all, close to 75% of all Bitcoin mining had been conducted in China by late 2019, according to Cambridge Alternative Finance Benchmarks. If the network teetered under the weight of China’s nationwide ban, other governments …

Russia’s central bank governor Elvira Nabiullina is the latest official to confirm that the country is warming to the idea of cryptocurrency payments, but not domestic ones. According to Nabiullina, cryptocurrencies can be used in cross-border or international payments only if they don’t get into Russia’s domestic financial system. The digital currency should not be used as payment on platforms inside Russia, the Bank of Russia governor said in an interview with the local news agency RBC. That is why cryptocurrency prices are too unstable or volatile, thus risky for retail investors, Nabiullina argued, stating: “Cryptocurrencies should not be traded …

Russian banking giant Sber — formerly known as Sberbank — is preparing to complete its first digital currency deal involving the bank’s proprietary digital asset platform soon. The bank will conduct its first transaction involving digital financial assets (DFA) on its digital asset issuance platform by mid-July. Anatoly Popov, deputy chairman of Sber’s executive board, disclosed Sber’s plans to complete such a deal in an interview with the state-backed news agency TASS on June 15. Popov claimed that Sber finally received registration from the country's central bank — the Bank of Russia — in spring 2022, following a series of …

A bill that had been introduced a week ago to the State Duma, the lower chamber of Russian Parliament, made a swift passing through first reading. Should it become a law, it would prohibit using “digital financial actives” (DFA) to pay for goods or services. As reported by local media on Tuesday, the bill, sponsored by the head of the Financial Markets Committee of the State Duma Anatoly Aksakov, passed with a reservation. Albeit the document suggests an obligation for DFA exchange managers to withhold any deals implicating the usage of tokens as a monetary surrogate, the prohibition could be …

Cointelegraph introduces “Crypto Street,” a series of spontaneous conversations with strangers on the street to educate, entertain and take a temperature check on the world’s relationship with crypto. The first episode comes from the gates of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. Cointelegraph reporter Joseph Hall attempted to speak with the world’s elite where he was rejected, ridiculed, and ignored before stumbling across crypto believers among the WEF attendees. Sporting a Cointelegraph sweatshirt with the loudest Bitcoin (BTC) logo, Hall asked passersby to guess what was print represented. Some WEF-goers refused to talk on camera while others claimed …

In recent months, Russian legislators have been preparing measures to fully institutionalize crypto as a properly taxable investment asset and a possible tool for foreign trade in Russia. Now, they want to make clear that the upcoming regulatory turn won’t include any windows for adopting digital financial products as a payments method. On Tuesday, Anatoly Aksakov, the head of the Financial Markets Committee of the Russian parliament’s lower chamber — the State Duma — introduced a bill that would prohibit the use of “digital financial actives” (DFA) to pay for any kind of goods or services. As the cover note …

First deputy governor of the Russian central bank Ksenia Yudaeva stated Tuesday that the bank is open to using cryptocurrency for international payments, Reuters reported, along with Russian media, which added that the bank was reconsidering its position on crypto mining as well. Yudaeva was quoted as saying: “We have changed our position on mining, and also permit the use of cryptocurrency in foreign trade and outside the country,” The bank official’s statement, sandwiched into announcements about domestic bank regulation, seems to be a concession to the legislators preparing a new version of the law “On Digital Currency.” Business newspaper …

Crypto miners account for two percent of the total electricity consumption in Russia, according to the latest government estimate. The energy consumption share of the crypto mining industry has exceeded the country’s agricultural sector, showing signs of recovery after Russia fell out of the top three in the global Bitcoin (BTC) mining hash rate share. Russia’s Deputy Minister of trade and industry Vasily Shpak called for bringing the mining industry under the purview of law in the wake of the recent mining estimate. He said: “Do you know how much mining accounts for in the overall map of electricity generation …

The Russian Federation is reportedly considering accepting cryptocurrencies for international payments in response to Western sanctions against the country that were prompted by its full-scale invasion of Ukraine earlier this year. The Moscow-based Interfax news agency and Reuters reported Friday that Ivan Chebeskov, who heads the Financial Policy Division within Russia’s Finance Ministry, is actively considering the possibility of incorporating crypto payments. “The idea of using digital currencies in transactions for international settlements is being actively discussed,” he said. According to local newspaper Vedomosti, the Finance Ministry is considering adding the proposal on international payments to an updated version of …

Ether’s (ETH) 12-hour closing price has been respecting a tight $1,910 to $2,150 range for twelve days, but oddly enough, these 13% oscillations have been enough to liquidate an aggregate of $495 million in futures contracts since May 13, according to data from Coinglass. The worsening market conditions were also reflected in digital asset investment products. According to the latest edition of CoinShare's weekly Digital Asset Fund Flows report, crypto funds and investment products saw a $141 million outflow during the week ending on May 20. In this instance, Bitcoin (BTC) was the investors' focus after experiencing a $154 weekly …