Russia is the home of the founder of Ethereum, the second most popular cryptocurrency in the world after bitcoin, Vitalik Buterin. The world’s largest bitcoin Miner, Bitfury , was created by another russian ,Valery Vavilov.
Cryptocurrencies have always been popular in Russia, but for years Russia and its government in particular has had a unique love-hate relationship with Blockchains , Bitcoins and Cryptocurrencies in general.