Russia Sees $648M In Daily Crypto Transactions As Gov Pushes Regulation

Russia’s finance ministry and central bank are reportedly calling on the government to speed up the rollout of crypto market regulations amid a boom in digital asset adoption, claiming that citizens are spending almost 50 billion Russian rubles ($648 million) on crypto daily. 

According to a report from Russian news outlet RBC on Thursday, Russia’s deputy finance minister, Ivan Chebeskov, emphasized the importance of regulating the market, noting that most crypto spending occurs through unregulated channels.  

“We have always said that millions of citizens are involved in this activity, these are trillions of rubles from the point of view of citizens in use, in savings,” he said as part of a panel discussion on digital assets at the Alfa Talk conference, adding: 

Russia’s deputy finance minister Ivan Chebeskov. Source: The Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation

The daily volume of 50 billion rubles cited by Chebeskov is roughly $648 million, and the yearly figure is $129.4 billion. It marks strong crypto adoption within the country as it tangles with economic sanctions slapped on the country by the US and Europe.

The European Union, in particular, has recently raised concerns about Russia’s use of crypto to bypass sanctions and is pushing to “ban all cryptocurrency transactions with Russia” as part of a new sanctions package, according to a Financial Times report on Feb. 10. 

In late December, Russia’s central bank released a policy proposal looking to enable both qualified and non-qualified investors to buy certain crypto assets, marking a stark contrast to its earlier push for an outright ban on crypto.

The proposal seeks to provide a strict limit on non-qualified investors, allowing them to hold up to 300,000 rubles ($3,834) worth of crypto a year, while allowing broad access to the market, excluding privacy coins, for qualified investors. 

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Speaking on the same panel as Chebeskov, the first deputy chairman of Russia’s central bank, Vladimir Chistyukhin, said he hopes to see crypto market regulation adopted by the government in the spring session of the State Duma, the first of two annual legislative periods in Russia.  

“We would very much like the government to see the law adopted in the spring session. I hope that this is a possible consensus decision and this will provide an opportunity for a transition period for market participants to obtain the necessary licenses, to develop appropriate internal documents to start work, as I said, to legalize this segment of the market,” he said.

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