Bitcoin Forum

What do you think about it?
https://cointelegraph.com/news/suddenly-russia-plans-to-ban-cryptocurrency-sales-to-ordinary-people

Ridiculous idea!
This soundsa bit like they wanna make crypto investing an elite thing.
I highly doubt this is going to work out.
The black market and local trading in dark side streets will thrive!

I read about it on reddit and it's quiet disappointing. In my opinion it's not a big setback for bitcoin. With this regulation they try to protect "oligarchs", they don't give ordinary russian people the chance to profit from bitcoin.

Powerful people alreadyhave ways trading anonymously, as we saw in Panama papers. Bitcoin is what wants to give that power to the people as well.
It is no surprise that government officials want to keep this power exclusive for themselves.

After reading the news what I see is bunch of confused set of people who don't know how to set their priorities right and are also bent on making some people dependent of elite class for the rest of their lives because that is what this policy is all about and nothing else. The same person who spoke about a mining farm is coming to talk of about a Ponzi scheme I find that more confusing than anything.

It seems like someone believes that cryptocoins will go really up with the value so they want to assure that only those who are already wealthy remain so...

based on experience any news that comes from Russia has always been way too exaggerated. for example some random Russian dude talks about banning bitcoin and the news sites start saying Russia banned bitcoin!
and again based on experience things that come from news sites like "cointelegraph" should be considered bullshit unless proven otherwise.

I still don't get it how can some one ban you buying bitcoin. I mean how can you get it done.It's decentralized.

This is why Russian chicks love getting fucked in the ass.  They are used to it.  Putin has been fucking the people in the ass for years.  

This is nothing other than a silly explanation for a law they will try to use to limit capital flight.  Russia is highly exposed to capital flight and its effects.  They will do whatever it takes to keep capital and hard currency inside of Russia.  Buying bitcoin involves hard currency leaving Russia.  Of course that is going to be illegal.  Get the lard!

Russia is paranoying with anything if it can make "ordinary" people more successful. The goverment only need money for themselves.

If i remember correctly MMM, one of the largest pyramid schemes ever originated from Russia and it seemed to be perfectly legal - nobody gave a damn in the government. But all of a sudden they start caring about people falling for a "pyramid scheme", aka bitcoin, when it is really not a pyramid scheme at all?

It just really doesn't make sense to me.

It seems obvious that the Russian government is trying to take people's freedom away from them by banning bitcoin, because they do have strict capital controls and the state still has a lot of power over its citizens. bitcoin means a gateway to the global free market, and the Russian government is trying to stop that.

They can't stop bitcoin though, because all they can do is shut down all the exchanges. And even then, p2p trading will still thrive and i think when people see how scared the government is about cryptos in that country, they'll just rush to buy more.

Russian governemnts always had some strange ideas so this isn't the surprise for me. But how could that actually do that? We all know that bans never solved anything and people just get more interseted in things that are baned. I don't think this is going to work and people in Russia will continue to use cryptocurrencies that is for sure.

This is the joke of the century and the highest hypocrisy that I have ever seen for the government representative to come openly to deny what was said just few days ago. They are the one that know that bitcoin is good for some category of people while it is bad for the ordinary citizen. People need to start seeing this level of hypocrisy and its shows that government is scared of the liberation this will bring to the people and with this they decide to go the route of using fear to discourage people.

There is a saying in Russian seven Fridays in a week. They can change their mind constantly, several times a day. Russia is now a big problem with investments so I doubt that such a decision will be made. Maybe bitcoins is the only way now to attract capital. But even if they ban bitcoin it will do nothing. You can always buy and store bitcoins outside the jurisdiction of Russia.

Who cares. More bitcoin for me. Russia doesn't have enough money to move the markets. They can provide some services to the community but they don't provide much liquid capital to the network so not a big loss.

Russia seems to have a way of making the impossible possible. Crypto currency try to fight centralized currency ideology and if they have a way to control it then we must sit up. This is not good

I think that this story is being heavily exaggerated and things are being taken out of context. And yes, just like the CCP in China, opinions on regulatory matters can change at the drop of a dime. Honestly, at this point, I don't think any major government would be so foolish so as to effectively ban cryptocurrencies. It would only put them further and further behind the rest of the world.

Russia's economy is smaller then the economies of some of the states in America. They are not a significant contributor to bitcoin's liquidity, nor its volume. Now if the state of California, in America, banned bitcoin, then we'd have problems.

This idea sounds like elitism and a way to
Keep the rich wealthy. I wonder what he actually
Means by 'qualified investors' and 'people with a
Reason to invest' ? Sounds like waffle.
Real backwards thinking to try a stop crypto.

No surprise. That's why when I read a lot of news saying that they will accept bitcoin, I just said I doubt it. They want to control everything including bitcoin. And now casuals can't even purchase meaning only the elite and rich can get it. Its totally authoritarian and we should not be shock from this news.

Ok, what does this have to do with anything? Only for elite traders? WHY? I mean it's not like ordinary people can lose all their money on other stuff, we still have the normal stock market. This really sounds like bullshit. A dumb choice.

Not surprising at all. If there is one thing that billionaires love is to find ways to keep the involuntary down - that’s how their product continues to increase in value. Let me ask you something: if the world has 25 people each worth over 500 billion dollars, then why does poverty still exist. I mean, that’s enough money to donate one million to each family in the world, with enough money left over to still maintain their billionaire status? Well, because there would be less demand for their product when everyone is a millionaire. That how rich people look at it. So, Russians are trying to maintain a class-based society by doing this. Absolutely disputable!!!

It seems to me that the government of this country does everything for the prosperity of the black market. :o

I think that it breaks the basic rights of people and divides society into castes.

In fact, I'm not surprised. The Russian government has its own views on everything. However, I believe that each of us should have a choice. So, using Bitcoin or not  should be our choice.

Should it not be the other way around? The Russian government can try but how will they implement it? But let us see who really gets "fucked in the ass". They cannot go house to house and confiscate all their citizens' computers just to see if they are using Bitcoin.

No need to panic. The government is preparing a law now. Not every 'no ordinary person' thinks that way. Many people in government actually do not understand how cryptos work. But allow themselves to give interviews on subject! They are used to regulate or ban everything.

This reminds me of when China thought they could manipulate the price of Bitcoin with FUD. It ain't working - the price of Bitcoin continues to rise!

Bill Gates is currently the richest man in the world and his net worth was 90 billion as of July this year. So there really isn't even 1/5th of a person with 500 billion dollars :D
As I understand, Bill Gates will give vast majority of his wealth to charity and so will his friend Warren Buffet (I believe he said he will give 99%), the second wealthiest man in the world. So this clearly doesn't apply to everyone. It is kind of useless to just sit on that money, so they give it away to people in need.
I believe that most of the richest people would want poverty gone. Not just out of the good hearth, but also because their products aren't really something that people in poverty buy. How many of billionaires you know that got rich of selling cheap food?
I really don't think that many people benefit from poor people in Africa, dieing of thirst, hunger and easily preventable diseases.

too fast, bitcoin ban in russia ,  after Russian government permit the use of bitcoin & cryptocurrency. but the Russian government also has a strong argument for bitcoin tires.

I wonder whether we can get any local Russians to comment on the actual situation. Alot of FUD going on. Just like when there was news about China banning? When in reality it didn't amount to much.

It's just a rumor. Bitcoin has not been approved for use in Russia so it is impossible to deny. The most popular service in Russia WebMoney is working without changes. Moreover, this week he added the possibility of using bitcoin in cash.

I longer believe anything when it comes to Bitcoin and Russia. One week every single user is going to jail, the next Vitalik Buterin is displaying his pecs with Putin.

It's about time they came out with an actual coherent policy that they then apply because I haven't seen one yet.

If they do try to go down the accredited investor route, real people will find their own ways to trade.

I think it's less about keeping it for themselves rather than keeping it away from the masses (just a tiny distinction, but an important one to make). Russia's government is an authoritarian one, and anything that might be construed to loosen the government's control is seen as a threat, especially economical powers such as bitcoin. this could also just be a political move to give their judicial system leverage; they can now prosecute anyone for any underlying reason if they can be reasonably be shown to be affiliated with bitcoin.

Seriously?!?! This is really insane. Bitcoin is the easiest way to do trading and is accessible to all. Limiting bitcoin to rich people will not make a good impression to their people.

I see it merely as a minor distraction, after all, no government can stop the cryptocurrency movement nor can they completely prevent "ordinary people" from obtaining them. They can set obstacles and slow down the adoption but they cannot stop the movement. Still a shame to see these kinds of news that confuse the "ordinary people", who are the ones most in need of cryptocurrencies.

Russia has big dark side history with bitcoin and alts coin even puttin met two Russian developers of wave\ETH . do you know why ? because no one controls revolution of blockchain .

The real question is, as one of the 'Ordinary People' if i decide to travel or maybe settle in Russia will I be persecuted or will they take my assets.
I hope that this is one of the so called "Fake news" else i would feel really bad for my fellow Russian friends.

Honestly, not that different than America, where we have "accredited investor" laws that prevent people with networth of less than $2 million (excluding your home) from participating in a lot of investment opportunities.  What Russia is doing is a little more controlling, but the idea of elitism disguised as "protecting you from yourself" isn't unique to them.

Good that you recognise that. It's not dissimilar to what they have in Malaysia, and given that it's just copying western banking, I'm not surprised if a lot of countries already have that in place. Amusing to see how regulators and the state can fail to see that their efforts to protect the elite few will always end up counter-productive to what they're trying to do. At least private equity firms are beginning to loosen up over exclusivity and public participation when it comes to their crypto involvement, although that's probably just linked to income diversification more than anything else.

The power of the Jews central bank.

This is a silly idea. Elite want to keep everything good only for the elite.
Fortunately no one can ban you from using bitcoin since it's decentralized.

I think I can understand the decision to a certain small extend. To be honest, any form of investment is considered as gambling and cryptocurrency can be one of the most volatile market out there!

Maybe Russia wants to issue its own cryptocurrency based on the Ruble but it see Bitcoin as a barricade for its success.

I wish Russia's Ruble cryptocurrency will be an ERC20 token issued in Ethereum! That will be good for laughs.

I don't think that this is a great idea for the country of Russia to just ban the cryptocurrencies to ordinary people because it is not a good idea since satoshi nakamoto wants to be decentralized and offer freedom to the people in the world and banning cryptocurrencies like bitcoin to the ordinary people will crossed that satoshi wants and i think a lot of people in bitcoin community will disagree for that specially the bitcoin users in Russia.

It's funny how how they must qualify if the reasons for the citizens to buy crypto are valid or not, instead of letting your citizens free and take their own financial decisions.

Bitcoin is here to finally let common people to have sovereign money, but they want to ostradize it into an elite of what they qualify as "qualified investors" which could be anything.

It's also reminiscent of when the internet fist came out, they wanted to limit it to "people that needed it" like the army and so on. These goons will never learn from past failures. Bitcoin will win.

I dont think how you can call it "suddenly". Their goverment do whatever and whenever they want if it is connected to the financial system.

There is a possibility that Russian banks and the government wants to join in the Bitcoin action but does not want its citizens to be empowered by the cryptocurrency. The use of Bitcoin in the darknet, money laundering and capital flight are valid reasons on why the government should not allow ordinary people to have it.

Putin's people are already planning on doing their own ICO to raise $100 million and set up a mining farm.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4103445-putins-people-getting-bitcoin-mining

In Russia deputy can't ban cryptocurrency.
It's impossible.
Vitalik Buterin has meet with Putin and make great plan for development blockchain technology.

 

Also russians bands want create and develop own chip for mining.
Chip will be powerful.
256 SHA 22.6 TH/s (~18 owned, ~4 to RMC token holders) 2.3-2.5 kwh 16 nm

It sounds as if they want to promote the new BitRuble.

I think you're right and they won't ban it

The Russian government has something up their sleeves. I'm not sure how much credibility we can assign to the reporting or the stance shift by the government because Russia has made these announcement before. They cannot stop the decentralized markets as long as the internet is available to the public but they can propagate the FUD and HYPE with their posturing. Something's up their sleeves.

Anything may happen as there are Governments have already started  thinking about regulating crypto after China's recent moves. I pray to God for Russia to stay neutral as it will be affecting me greatly.

Russia seems to confuse its own citizens on its stand on bitcoin. Just when I thought they were starting to warm up on bitcoin, this statement comes out of nowhere. This could lead to a negative sentiment especially to the lower classes as if they are being warned to stay away from investments such as crypto currencies. And they are making it sound like bitcoin should only be explored by those who have lots of money, and it is not for the meant for the masses to invest in.

I thought they don't like bitcoin and their leader Mr. Putin will create his own cryptocurrency/coin and will challenge bitcoin?. Anyway, I really think that this is too much, Cryptocurrency is here for decentralization and here's russia planning to ban it for ordinary people.  ::)

I feel sorry for the Russian people, because they are too scared to stand up to corrupt leadership. We cannot blame them, because of this : https://qz.com/862764/heres-a-list-of-abuses-in-vladimir-putins-russia/

This might also be the first step to protect Ethereum in Russia : https://www.coindesk.com/vladimir-putin-vitalik-buterin-discuss-ethereum-opportunities-recent-forum/

Lots of strange things happening in Russia. ^hmmmmm^

Yes, It is easier to trade bitcoin in blackmarket than trading illegal commodities. You need no transportation to send bitcoin you need only internet connection. If they want to ban bitcoin they should shut down internet first. Bitcoin is for elite people. It is the way a dictator country control people wealth. They don't want people being rich. If most people rich they will be educated and endangered the dictatorship.

the steps taken by the Russian government may be correct because they issued the statement already thought of previous positive and negative impacts. however, if we talk about welfare and justice should all the social status possessed by people can be given the confidence to become one of the sales cryptocurrency with the record they are able to bear all the risk that will happen and they also have a good strategy to not get caught in failure.

I think this is not true that Russia has planned something which is not acceptable to an ordinary person. As I heard that Russia is going to legalized bitcoin as their regular currency, it means that everyone can sell and buy crypto currency and can use it as they are using their robles.

The other thing is that why will Russia do that. The governments of all the nations want to improve the financial position of their people and not to ban something of their interest.

This is surely a bad idea as this decision doesn't give any justice to the ordinary people.
Everybody should be given a chance to invest in crypto currency. They say that it is highly risky then they should make decisions such as people should be able to invest in it at their own risk not banning it completely for ordinary people.
The sudden decision by them is surely a planned one and i guess there is something fishy that will surely come out at some point of time.

Russia has a positive response to crypto, especially to bitcoin and ethereum, I would not be surprised if they first legalized bitcoin compared to America because all the emerging projects are from russia and ukraine. If they prohibit the use of bitcoin and legal for some people it is a mistake, I think it is just a mere trick of the mainstream media.

Even like that, it has the positive side, the fraud in cryptocurrency will significantly decrease because only extraordinary people will have the privilege to invest or to trade a digital asset.
By the way, it's all planned as you say because government always do research before making a decision.

The media keeps flipping back and forth; I really don't know what to think. Last week, the Finance Minister was saying that there is no point in banning payments in cryptocurrency. But now his deputy is saying precisely the opposite?

The Ethereum Foundation also recently made some sort of development agreement with a Russian state-owned bank last month. It's almost as if they were trying to cause a dip in the price. Very Jamie Dimon-like of them....

I don't get this how come for the government trace the status of owners of bitcoin as far as I know the owners of bitcoin are anonymous it's very private and there's no way to trace them and also if people want to keep their identity they can do it and government will never know that. Bitcoin is for everyone it does not have any qualifications for ownership that's why it is introduce because it intend to help people earn in the easy and legal way.

They should have planned their decision well in this case. It's good that the scamming of cryptos will be decreased by this decision but then there is also a negative point that ordinary people like me, who do have a good knowledge and experience about crypto will not be able to invest in it just because we are not heavy investors. Also that beginners would not be able to be a part of cryptos. So the only people who will be in cryptos will be the ones who are already in it and there will be no new participants unless he/she is already rich. So this according to me is a huge down side to this decision.
P.S: I am not from Russia and "people like me" was just an example as there would be many people from this criteria in Russia.

I was always irritated by this division into "elite" and "non-elite" people. The times of social stratification have long since passed, and now everyone who has brains can become a millionaire. And bitcoin is an excellent opportunity to earn those people who are not left behind by relatives who do not steal and do not deceive, but want to engage in honest, profitable earnings. And the ban on the sale of bitcoin to "ordinary" people will be very damaging to Russia's reputation, because it's ridiculous! I hope that Russian politicians will not be able to introduce this ban, and even as they succeed, bitcoin is a decentralized system.

Sad but there is nothing really they can do to block Ordinary People from NOT Ordinary People. There is NO such feature in any blockchain and there is NO central point where they can rate people and filter one from the other.

Not so strange to me,Russia is regime,famous qoute from Stalin time is money in hands of our enemys can be dangerous weapon,money in hands of our own people is most dangerous enemy.It is like that in any regime system,that who controll money controll people

Russia is an even bigger market than China. They will not dare to close it. Regulate it yes but close it no.