Bitcoin Forum

This is not good news, BTC price could be dump even more.

Alexey Guznov, head of the legal department at Russia’s central
bank, revealed the news in an interview with local news agency Interfax on March 16.

 Issuance and circulation of crypto in the country poses an “unjustified risk”
 Although the original bill “On Digital Financial Assets” stipulated that cryptocurrency trading would be allowed in Russia, the amended document will apparently prohibit nearly everything about crypto except holding, according to Guznov’s latest remarks.

 The official said that the upcoming law will explicitly prohibit the issuance and circulation of cryptocurrency and would introduce penalties for violating this law. Guznov argued:

 “In terms of the functioning of the financial system and consumer protection system, legalization of the issuance and facilitating the circulation of cryptocurrencies is an unjustified risk. As such, the bill explicitly prohibits emission and organization of cryptocurrency circulation, introducing legal liability for violating these rules.”

 Russia’s central bank would unlikely be able to regulate Bitcoin transactions
 Besides claiming that the crypto bill would ban Russian financial institutions from issuing digital assets, Guznov provided little clarity about the upcoming bill. When asked whether the Bank of Russia wants to ban residents from converting crypto into local fiat currency, the Russian ruble, or a foreign currency, Guznov did not provide a direct answer.

I found the interview (https://www.interfax.ru/interview/699260) with interfax news but it's in Russian language. Not many news about the new orientation of Russia toward cryptocurrencies, the media is busy with covid19 and the crash in the market.
According to this article (https://www.google.com/amp/s/cointelegraph.com/news/russias-central-bank-seeks-to-ban-crypto-issuance-and-circulation/amp) published today in Cointelegraph, the ban law will be in the form of amendment, as the original bill about "digital financial assets (https://cointelegraph.com/news/russias-ministry-of-finance-legalizes-cryptocurrency-trading-central-bank-disagrees)" allows crypto trading and other forms of crypto use.
In my opinion, it's not the best time to work on this kind of ban while we should recommend people to use casheless systems to avoid body contact. Seems Russia is not really aware about how the use of crypto can limit the spread of the virus by its contactless nature .

I'm not surprised at all, I've been calling Russia to be against crypto since 2017. You just have to read between the lines, their statements are always contradictory. One day you will hear some government officials saying that they're going pro-crypto, and then the next days, another one will issue his statement against it. That's why I have been saying to take everything with a bag of salt any news releases coming from them as if they are going to adopt it.

@coupable - it's not that they are not aware of it, it's that they want to control everything, they don't want large exodus of capital or assets.

They don't know what they want. I remember reading that they were baninmg crypto to isue their own cryptocurrency. This was years ago. Then they changed their mind and said blockchain is great. Then they did not issue any centralized crypto and just postponed everything. Then we heard about them trying to legalize it. Now we hear about them trying to ban it again? Ho many times can you change your mind about the same thing?

Don't FUD, wait until it's written in stone.

I don't believe a word that any Russian official says about crypto. They all talk shit and contradict each other.

And the only bit of crypto where Russia leads is scamming anyway. It never has been a significant market. If it goes it's unfortunate for Russians but the rest of the market will pay little attention.

And more than likely if any of this is true it'll be just the same as other 'bans' - banks will not be allowed to hold, issue or sell crypto directly and there are barely any banks anywhere on the planet that do that.

According to the interview made with the Russian official, the amended document will be about forbidden everything related to cryptocurrencies except for Holding. This has no sense and reveals how much the Russian governors are confused about cryptos and how decisions are made. If we don't have to believe such news, then we should believe that they are creating a FUD. As instead focusing on fighting Corona, officials seems to have so much time dealing with non-urgent cases .

and if indeed they are totally banning the usage of crypto, they are going against the trend where other progressive countries are already legalizing the use of crypto. I think they will change their stance regarding this situation. there are so many Russians who are into crypto. who knows, some of their gvt officials are holders of crypto? it is only a matter of time when they will change their statement again towards crypto, just like China.

That is ridiculous to think that they are allowing crypto for hold but not of the other activity. How could it work if they all just holding?
I don't know if we have to believe them because they are actually giving some confusion to their people. It much better to totally banned crypto and no holding exemption so people could think that they are serious about this. It simply they are not true about banning crypto and I may think that their statement can be changed anytime soon.

Ditto. They have waffled on proposed cryptocurrency rules more times than I can remember. And that's all we're discussing here -- changes to a proposed bill (https://www.coindesk.com/bank-of-russia-says-new-digital-assets-bill-will-outlaw-crypto-trading-issuance), which may never get passed.
 

It's certainly not like the US or China in terms of adoption, but Russia's OTC market is flourishing (https://news.bitcoin.com/cash-to-crypto-trade-blooming-in-moscow-reports-say/). Cross-border remittance is also becoming a significant market (https://www.coindesk.com/tether-usdt-russia-china-importers).

Is it valid news? Can you show us the link where you got the news?
I'm still not really sure that in this situation, Russia announced to ban crypto trading. How poor the crypto traders there! Moreover, it may bring negative impacts to market trends. As we know that we in a decline phase, it probably triggers the more declines.  :-\

The officials of Russia always give a conflicting information, one time you here crypto will soon be legal, another time you hear they want to develop their own coin, and today we are discussing banning and penalty. At the end of the day, the position will be changed. If the worst happens, Ukraine is close bye.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/russias-central-bank-seeks-to-ban-crypto-issuance-and-circulation

One thing of note is that it's not finalized yet.


I wouldn't be surprised. They're already moving to outlaw payments (https://bitcoinist.com/russia-fsb-wants-to-interfere-in-crypto-regulation/), and Putin himself doesn't seem to be a big fan, outside maybe CryptoRuble (whatever happened to that? lol) and its potential to evade sanctions.

It should be noted that in Russia there is now an anti-people government led by Putin. Putin strictly prohibits freedom of speech and freedom of demonstration, the manifestation of any protests against his clan. The situation with crypto in Russia will change only when this regime collapses. Cryptocurrency is financial freedom, therefore authoritarian regimes are always against cryptocurrency. Putin sent his specialists to Venezuela to help the Maduro regime create cryptocurrency Petro there. Russia uses cryptocurrency to avoid international sanctions. Putin’s regime is afraid that even his entourage will withdraw his assets abroad like rats from a sinking ship. All Putin’s policies are built on lies. They even now don’t intend to fight with coronavirus, because there are sorely lacking devices for ventilation of the lungs, and they no intend to invest a lot of money in it. There, they simply expect to cry the numbers about the sick. Therefore, we should expect that the Russian population will be completely ill with the coronavirus.

People in this forum were preaching that cryptocurrencies will replace paper money because of the coronavirus. ;D Now you all know this ain't gonna happen.
I don't find any logic in the possible crypto trading ban in Russia.How they define the term "unjustified risk"?
Risk of what?All the markets are crashing.Will they ban stock trading as well?
I guess that Russia simply wants to protect it's national currency,but this is a chaotic measure.

Laws in the Russian Federation are written with the calculation of their optional enforcement. This will be a prime example. As well as the illicit exchange of fiat currency by private individuals

They're good  :D Seem like its not just the Chinese that are making crypto users confuse about their laws.  What is surprising is that Russians are the ones very busy in blockchain developments just like the Chinese.

But I don't think this is going to affect price. Its already down to its bottom, if it would then its gonna crush to hearts of the kids who invested at $10k.

I just published last month about the Russian government taking over digital asset implementing laws and tokenization just like China and US, what happened? I thought they were doing good enough to compete with these major countries in cryptocurrencies adoption which will boost their country's economy. Seems like Putin is very confuse on what to do now with the trend.

A very dumb of me when I invested at $10K every one I know told me that, now that the price is kissing the floor I have nothing to do but wait until it pumps. Russian would not hesitate to still trade crypto that's for sure but somehow it would affect the price, perhaps their government would be strict about this one.

Did really they?

Last time, I was just watching that they were really welcoming to cryptocurrencies and they've planning to integrate it with their financial system. Probably with the banks and other financial institutions and now this?

Hmmm, what a timely ban.

Is not it in Russia that cryptocurrency is growing so rapidly that many successful projects originating from Russia and now they are banning is there a strong reason in the country to be banned?

I know a lot before Russia would adopt the blockchain into their system but now it is very surprising if in Russia cryptocurrency is really prohibited.

I was actually shocked to hear this news because Russia is one of the countries which we know is in the list of those which support cryptocurrency. I believe the crypto world wants a legit article regarding this. But if it is really true, I think it is just a formed step and still in tbe process of observation. At a time like this, cashless system is needed. But if this is due to the decline of BTC also, then the decision is reasonable.

Be careful with your words! They might be watching you right now  ;D ;D

Scamming is something which is not specific to any country. Most of the countries have people scamming others and so pointing out Russia won't be an ethical thing to do here.

Both of us have no idea the reason behind it. That's why I'm also asking if they really did that.

Because the news that I have heard about them gives a go signal for both crypto and blockchain on their country. And we have this, we don't know what's on the minds of their officials. Maybe somewhat connected to the hot issue and bloody markets we have.

Funny thing that The Bank of Russia wants to ban crypto issuance and circulation but on the other hand want to create it's own digital currency. So basically they cannot ban crypto when they create their own crypto.


Source : https://cointelegraph.com/news/russias-central-bank-seeks-to-ban-crypto-issuance-and-circulation

It's amazing how much contradictory information can come from one country about just one thing, in this case about cryptocurrency. This is almost like some kind of competition between Russia and China, who will put out more confusing information so that the average person can no longer really know what is false and what is true. As squatter say, this is just about some changes in proposed bill, and it's all just a lot of stories and assumptions.

I know there are a lot of people involved in crypto from Russia, and it would be very bad for them if such restrictions would occur. But same as in the case of China, I believe many would find some workarounds and continue to trade with crypto.

It will bring an impacts for sure, this situation around cryptocurrency is really unpredictable after the spread of coronavirus now another unwanted news from russia that will create panic from more investors and holders. Assess and observe if you are aiming for long term investment it's a good time for you to wait for more dumped then wait for another pump.

if the countries that had opened themselves to the cryptocurrency were successful, would Russia change the rules they issued again?
"China has taken two steps to accept the cryptocurrency while Russia has retreated two steps stay away from the cryptocurrency"

I think they are just resisting progress. Maybe because they can't control bitcoin is te reason that they are banning cryptocurrency in their country but there is still hope that someday they will accept this progress. Their interviews might be contradicting each other but someday they will agree and compromise.

With the understanding of how Russia handle information on international view on power and finance, I find it hard to believe they can publicly and intentionally go against crypto. Besides I even make more friends from Russia on crypto than in past 2 years, which could indicate the increase in crypo adoption within such country. Everyone wants to share in the trillion dollar space in the coming years.

Governments might try to prevent people from offering securities in the form of tokens. But this just hurts them. People will create the securities in a different jurisdiction where it is legal.

Putin’s regime is making money on cryptocurrency, evading the application of international sanctions. Putin even sent his specialists to Venezuela to help Maduro create Petro's coin there for the same purpose. However, Putin will not give financial freedom to his citizens. We are witnesses of how, over the past few years, the highest officials of Russia have expressed controversial opinions about cryptocurrency. This is the essence of Putin’s deceitful domestic and foreign policy. Lies in everything and denial of obvious facts. Just awful.

The sad reality. With their actions, they push citizens further into the Stone Age, while capitalizing on what they themselves have banned.

This guys better be joking lol. People are prohibited from doing everything with cryptocurrency except holding.
Seriously? What’s the need for holding Bitcoin if you can’t trade it and convert to fiat when you need it?

This is very bad and such law is going to discourage a lot of people from making use of cryptocurrency unless they are all going to find some means that they will be using whenever they want to convert their cryptocurrencies to fiat; they might just send it to someone else who needs it and the person will pay the money into their bank account I guess. That way the money will be seen as regular transaction and won’t be suspected to be another cryptocurrency business deal.

Has anyone even read the last news??
THE RUSSIAN CENTRAL BANK CANNOT BAN BITCOIN NOR OTHER CRYPTOCURRENCIES!!
read the quote below!

This should be enough to stop the FUD, look at the price of BTC it is skyrocketing now :) :)

I do think that Whosoever bans cryptocurrencies never really succeeds in doing so because people find one way or the other to use them.
Ukraine is Preety close by and it's a place where you can actually buy cryptocurrencies through money after consulting people who sell them , they can aquire it by any means for sure .
Government does not understand that they cannot always control everything .
Even at the time of Corona Virus they should understand and let people use whatever help they can use.

whether they ban or unban it does not really matter because more and more countries are now convince about the importance digital currency in  an emergency time like this. most countries i.e  italy have started talking about the fact that eu should liquidify the amount euro in circulation if, they believe this is contributing to the rapid spread of virus (nCOV)

In regard's to Russia action i think they need more time. that is the reason why they are called RUSSIA otherwise, they might end-up rushing you!

Thanks
Soldierwitlittlefaith

I thought it might affect the market at first, but I think the value of bitcoin is more than we can see. Given Russia's strong military and political background, it is not surprising that such statements.

There is something I do not understand here, why is it that there is alot of mixed messages usually come out of Russia about Crypto. Russia in particular need Crypto if she wants to free herself from the US sanctions. I know they need to do the cost/benefit analysis of the situation on ground because the fear of most federal government is that they are likely to lose the control of their monetary system but they already lost it

I saw this too many times guys in order to believe it so even if this is official how long it will last ? They don't want Russian people to buy Bitcoin especially when prices went down  so same goes in my country. As soon as the price is about to fall they instantly remove the Bitcoin buy option from LOCAL ATM's and the partnership with Smith&Smith also goes down and after the recovery and after they make the sells and Bitcoin start to swing again in prices they add it up again so people will lose money again by trading or simply holding. Don't get panic , hold long term , no one can hurt you.

There's no way it would affect the price significantly, Russia's Bitcoin use was always small, it doesn't have a lot of hashpower like China, it isn't a global superpower like the US, its economy is weak so there's not a lot of big holders who might want to dump Bitcoin. We've seen some other countries banning crypto and it didn't crash it, and it won't happen this time.

Just like the other countries, they will ban crypto trading from the beginning then they are going to study it and will allow it later.

Though there's impact but like what you have said it isn't that much to completely affects the entire crypto market. This banning issues was been there and it's not new to this country, they always have negative insights for crypto industry and whether they've choose to support or not crypto will continue to progress.

I think Russia become the only one in EUROPE country support with bitcoin and altcoin become legal digital currency transaction and not hear they want to banned using bitcoin as digital payment, with easy payment way bitcoin look better than other digital payment and have advantage with bitcoin price at the future.

that's right, it's been a long time that crypto has very much the support of their government, because clearly what is obtained from crypto is a very reliable facility that makes things work well and benefits the country. so it is wrong if a state that has obtained facilities actually forbids it. Until now digital money has made it very easy for transactions and conveniences not obtained from others.

Since I did not find an official link to the news, I am more inclined to believe that this news is fake. Please check the news before posting it here, because it creates unnecessary noise. The Internet is now full of fake news and you continue to produce them.

That's exactly right, all these articles and comments about Russia being "pro-crypto" is straight up bs, russian media is 100% corrupt and the info they put out is rarely close to the reality

so that new bill will make all blockchains without backdoors illegal? 🤔:

Once again politicians doing what politicians know to do best: Make things worse. Of course Russians don't need to put up with this nonsense, but they will have to go "underground". The net effect is less wealth for Russia, who will simply find its way around to friendlier places.

Nobody can regulate Bitcoin, period. It was made specifically to prevent that. No amount of law, bans, regulation or rules can mend what the coin can actually do and not do. And it doesn't care what governments and institutions think about it, it just is.

When a politician uses the word "unjustified risk" regarding bitcoin, it definitely means the gov is doing or about to do something idiotic: Such as printing, pegging, or a combination. And they know their idiotic attempts to bypass the market end overtaken by things like bitcoin which is free from their rules. In their short minded old fashioned thinking, they think the solution is to "ban it", as if they actually could. Next of course, is ban the internet, and censor foreign sites.

If they don't want to issue their own crypto, that is fine or even better: everyone should stick to bitcoin anyway. But don't try to stop Bitcoin, you won't succeed.

As for this affecting bitcoin's price, not even close. Putin is into mining anyway.

This is probably and literally a bad news because of the banning of the Russia to the cryptocurrency trading in which Russians has the big contribution to the crypto trading will definitely going to lose and it may really become also a reason of a dumping of the market in which this is rrally bad for us because we are seeing right now that the market is having a struggle on how it will pump up or how it will recover to the crisis that is happening right now.

And to think that most shitcoin project are from that zone :-X what is the reason behind the ban or why are they thinking of banning btc at this very time, if there are traders who are violating any rules or laws better to fine them accordingly than to ban the entire trading activity,
is it that all the Russia exchanges (if any wil be short down) or all other exchanges that are not located in the country will be restricted and the citizens can not access it :-\ because even with that, there are still the option of using vpn to by-pass such restrictions,
well, it won't stop crpto from progressing, they are only a part of the crypto community :-\

I thought i read somewhere on the forum that Russian have no intention of banning crypto but they fear they do not have control over the transaction. My fear why would they wanna control crypto trading? if it is because of tax, why don't they consider some other benefits. Alot of people have job to feed their family thanks to crypto. This is another bad news if this is true.

They (Russian authorities) want Putin to rule the country forever (for many different but at the same time ill reasons). And their bickering with OPEC has so far fallen off oil prices, but their attitude towards cryptocurrencies is unlikely to affect anything.

Maybe for them for now cryptocurrency does not have a big effect on the economic condition of their country so it is not impossible because the problem is cryptocurrency is banned from Russia, especially as we know today that the virus Covid-19 pandemic continues to increase so it is not impossible this matter also becomes one of the triggers

This is not a profitable market for anyone in Russia but a select few. It was banned and this is no joke as some are trying to suggest its fake news.

it has to deal with the issuance of currency out of thin air and much of the scams originated in that region. This goes against what Russia is trying to do, which is become like China with a top down goverenment controlled police state. Crypto does not fit well here and Russia doesn't want digital currency but rather digital control of its citizens. Much like China where they take your picture on the street for J walking and there isn't even a ticket or a dispute but instead a script that goes in your bank account and takes the money before you even get home,, at least you get a txt message informing you. :)

Bitcoin will be banned anyhere it threatens the establishment, currently its too small of a threat anywhere else but in USSR they've done some very bad things with it. In developing nations you'll see it extended as they are desperate to bring action into the country. Russia doesn't need this, they have unlimited gas and resources and don't need another headache that stands in the way of control.

The Russian government often banned crypto, but after a few months often changed to allow crypto. Indeed from the beginning the government
Russia has never supported cryptocurrency, but it has never been banned for a long time. Russia news banned crypto trading this time I'm sure it
won't last long, so there's no need to worry for the crypto community in Russia.

Russia was A "Going to be the biggest investor ever" a few years back,. You can't ban Crypto trading for any smart person that understands VPN to obtain purchases or trade via wallets. This and these topics have been flaunted hundreds of times regardless of being true and most if not all have never succumb to the ban/s. India / South Korea / USA / Australia there all still trading.

https://news.bitcoin.com/putins-order-russia-cryptocurrency-regulation/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2019/01/14/russia-plans-tackle-us-sanctions-bitcoin-investment-says-kremlin/

It's MEH and just trying to spread fear, Would not be surprised if it's wales talk.


Sorry had to edit.
It just occurred to me this may be talk from Russia to get the BTC price to drop after they do some dumps so they can buy back in to recoup COVID costs. Speculation of coarse

   It's what I think too, they can try to ban it, but they will not be able to do it fully! People will always
find a way to do what they want to do, and Russia is big, there are many crypto-users there!
   This is not official yet! In past few years I saw many headlines about China, India and Russia and how
they plan to ban it or to try to regulate it, but until now nothing happened. We still have people from there
and their number is getting bigger!

Hello everybody. I think that the ban on cryptocurrency in Russia is too loudly said. Let's just say that it simply has no legal status. Cryptocurrency in Russia is just like a mood, like a thought. How can you ban the mood? No one in the world was able to completely ban cryptocurrency - there is no such solution, I do not see how Russia can be smarter than others. And the various statements of officials at various levels only ignites the interest of the people in this industry.

Me too, I seriously doubt Russia, as one of the leading cryptocurrency users I know, will ban bitcoin trading or almost all cryptocurrency trading. But if it really is a big deal, I think Russian cryptocurrency enthusiast will really make a way to make it possible for them to be still with bitcoin.

I found an article here (https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2020/03/21/blow-to-bitcoin-as-russia-moves-to-effectively-ban-crypto/#20a64fec5c63) and it states that Guznov admitted that Russia will not be able to completely ban cryptocurrency. Just like what I said before, there will still be people making their way to use crypto, but they will only be punished if and only if they will be caught breaking the rules and jurisdiction.