Bank of Russia plans to ban digital currencies

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Russia’s central bank is not a big fan of digital currencies; in fact, the Central Bank of Russian Federation reportedly intends to impose a blanket ban on the sector in the near future, according to its governor. The country has already banned BTC payments and recently prohibited mutual funds from investing in digital currencies.

In a recent press conference, Governor Elvira Nabiullina addressed digital currencies and central bank’s attitude towards the industry, which has been receiving mixed signals from government authorities in the country.

Responding to questions about what the bank’s plan is regarding digital currencies, the former economic advisor to President Vladimir Putin stated, “You know that our attitude towards cryptocurrencies is of, to put it mildly, skepticism. Related to this are the significant risks for retail investors and the substantial volatility for this type of asset.”

As with many other banking executives, Elvira believes that digital currencies are anonymous and this makes them prone to criminal activities. However, this has been debunked over the years by experts in the field and government organizations. With blockchain analytics tools advancing rapidly, companies like Chainalysis and Elliptic are now able to trace transactions on the blockchain easily, leading to a series of arrests globally of those who thought they could hide behind BTC.

Dr. Craig Wright has extensively spoken as well on Bitcoin is created to be private, but not anonymous.

According to Nabiullina, “In addition, cryptocurrencies are opaque in that they are frequently used for illegal operations or criminal nature. Therefore, we cannot welcome investments in them.”

She insisted that the bank would be seeking to bring down digital currencies in Russia, and that this is quite possible. “We seek to prevent the Russian financial infrastructure from using crypto transactions. This is quite doable,” she told the media.

As CoinGeek reported recently, the Bank of Russia is already working on reports which it intends to table before parliament on why it’s crucial to ban digital currencies. This is despite one prominent lawmaker saying that the government is weighing whether legalizing and regulating digital currencies would be a better path than banning them. This way, it could collect taxes from the sector.

Watch: Dr. Craig Wright’s presentation at CoinGeek New York, Set in Stone: What is a Commodity?