• Russian Government moves to legalize crypto currencies
• Russia’s Central bank strongly opposes such a move.
• Experts think the move will attract foreign investments.

Russian authorities are moving towards regulating cryptocurrency use in Russia. Bloomberg reports that Anton Siluanov, the Finance Minister, wrote to Mikhail Mishustin stating that legalizing cryptocurrency would eliminate gray market trading. It would allow the government to monitor the sector, he believes. Siluanov claims that opening trade might lead to foreign investors exploding.

Later, the government published an outline on how it intends to regulate this market. Alexey Moiseev, Deputy Finance Minister in Russia stated:

Clear and transparent regulations are needed for citizens’ and business participation in crypto-market financial instruments. A clear regulation will prevent the creation of parallel financial systems.

However, Russia’s central bank opposes this move citing several reasons. First, the central bank thinks that crypto currencies are similar to pyramid schemes in terms of structure and function. It also stated that cryptocurrency could be used to make illegal transactions.

“The approaches proposed by the government do not yet allow neutralizing the risks that we see, and at the same time they create new threats,” says Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina.

Since 2014, when the Kremlin annexed Crimea to Ukraine, Russia has seen a slump in foreign investments. “Legalizing cryptocurrency could help Russia’s investment case, which suffers from a lack of venture capital due to the conflict with the West,” says Andrey Mikhailishin. Mikhailishin, the Moscow chief executive of Joys Digital’s payment service, is also known as Mikhailishin. Transparency could bring in $3.5 billion of investment by 2022, he believes. Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, called upon authorities in January to find a solution.

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