Russia Opens the Door to Cryptocurrencies

[Sniper44]

a couple of days ago i was talking with a friend about different countries adopting bitcoin in 2017 and i brought up what has been happening in Japan which is in my opinion the biggest scale of them all, and then i said every other country will soon start doing the same thing by following Japanese footsteps soon enough.
and it seems like what i said is now coming true. with Russia, and i read some more countries like France and some more in the European region are starting things up.
things are certainly getting exciting for bitcoin.

[joshy23]

Russia keeps contradicting itself. They have been anti-bitcoin bitcoin. So if this is true then its a complete U-Turn from what they have said before. Though I will take this as a grain of salt. We will have to wait and see. But if ever they will accept bitcoin, It will be put under strict regulations and the government will make sure that they know every individual who have transact using bitcoin. For tax purposes only?  

[electronicash]

weren't they allowing it already since time which is why most of the developers doing ICO are form russia?
if they were jsut considering doing it right now then i guess they'd be the 2nd to japan. its a good thing though. is this the reason of this current spike of btc?

[Dimelord]

so finally the Russian Finance Ministry gave up on their nonsense about wanting to ban bitcoin and threatening jail time!
it is funny how all this time one of the biggest bitcoin conferences about bitcoin and blockchain was held in Moscow.

At the same time, Russia, one of the strongest opponents of bitcoin is seeking to regulate the digital currency. Russian Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseev told Bloomberg in an interview this week that the authorities hope to recognize bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a legal financial instrument in 2018 in a bid to tackle money laundering.

from http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/12/bitcoin-price-rises-japan-russia-regulation.html

i hope this doesn't lead to restrictive regulatory laws.

They tried their best to ban bitcoins.But now they have realized that they could not and have started following china.Same would happen with india which is now discussing the possibilities about banning bitcoins.Soon this world is going to become bitcoin dominant world.Bitoin has once again proved that its unstoppable.

[MedaR]

after japan now its russia's term to embrace the system, will see more to come in coming days as more investors and businessman will see
the advantage of using bitcoin core, another ath will shine for sure.

Maybe they start race in adoption? Government knows accepting them they can influence, interfere with, and regulate it! Otherwise they don't have control and can't gain anything from Cryptocurrencies. Espect regulations, strict policies and limitations. How they are going to look at anon coins?

[Kprawn]

Here is the kicker... They will, like most other countries... want to create their own GovCoin to "control" their citizens and if they ban Crypto currencies

now, they would make it difficult for them to justify their own GovCoin. So there are always some hidden agenda behind these moves. Mark my words,

we will soon see some GovCoin for most countries that would be implemented and once this is done... Bitcoin will be banned again. 

[SyGambler]

every country should do the same IMO , we all remember how Russia was aggressive against bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies
now probably they realized that they don't have much to do , so " legalizing " it is for sure better for the government since maybe they can benefit a little from that

[Ayers]

after japan now its russia's term to embrace the system, will see more to come in coming days as more investors and businessman will see
the advantage of using bitcoin core, another ath will shine for sure.

Notice that in Japan AFAIK only bitcoin is fully regulated, I don't know about altcoins. Russia is planning to grab cryptocurrency as evaluate it under one big umbrella term.
I wonder if they will prepare a list of good, supported and bad, potentially harmful, ponzi realated or scam cryptocurrencies?

they will support only big coins like zcash and ETH not scam coin like bitcoin plus or zcash classic and other shit, i think that russia is going to do this because they feel they can increase their economy which is suffering at the moment

[chrisivl]

every country should do the same IMO , we all remember how Russia was aggressive against bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies
now probably they realized that they don't have much to do , so " legalizing " it is for sure better for the government since maybe they can benefit a little from that

I'm surprised at such news. Russia really hostile to the crypto currency several years ago. The first draft of the law provided for criminal liability for using crypto currency.
I hope that due to this step the price of bitcoin will grow significantly

[CyberKuro]

https://geopoliticalfutures.com/russia-opens-door-cryptocurrencies/

Russia has announced that it will legalize the use of cryptocurrencies. Official reports from the State Duma and the Finance and Economic Development ministries confirmed last week that a bill is being drafted to create the legal framework for trading in bitcoin, dash, ether and other digital currencies. This comes just a year after the same Russian institutions said that people trading in these currencies could be jailed. This raises two important questions: Why has the government made this U-turn, and what opportunities does it now see in this technology? The answers lie in Russia’s need to address serious problems in the banking sector and their impact on the economy.

The Russian economy has been under severe strain since 2014, when oil prices dropped and the United States and European Union imposed sanctions that have dried up foreign investment. As the costs of accessing money increased, the banking sector was also affected by the downturn. Against this backdrop, the Russian Central Bank has intensified its anti-corruption campaign meant to address dodgy, inefficient banks, some of which use money-laundering schemes to remove capital from the country. About 100 banks have closed in the last three years. Central bank head Elvira Nabiullina said the campaign would continue for at least two more years.

But closing banks is expensive – the process has so far cost the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) about $50 billion. In addition, the central bank needs to act carefully to avoid a liquidity crisis caused by closing banks. Local companies depend on banks for liquidity. Extended cash shortages in the country’s mono-industrial regions (many of these regions exist in Russia) could fuel social unrest, which the central government wants to avoid.

Moscow hopes to address some of its banking sector woes with new technology.

The biggest question is what caused Russia to have a change of mind. They have been very strict with the use of any cryptocurrency before but they are very open to it at this point of time. This is possibly due to the large business opportunity and the potential market and profit that cryptocurrency will come in to Russia using the digital currencies. They have a good  financial analyst on their side and they have seen the future of cryptocurrencies and they dont want to be left behind.

If you read the article, it says they're having problems with fraud - many of the banks they are closing are bankrupt because someone ran off with the money and they can't trace it.

They believe that bitcoin will help them track people if they start to put banking onto a blockchain - also, they probably hope to track fraudsters who send money to exchanges to be traded, which is why they are legalising the trading. In part it's because they have decided that banning it is silly - but they have also decided it might be a nice honey pot to catch people.

In other words, they are setting a trap, looking for track bigger trade in the cryptocurrency market.
A wise decision to regulate and legalized some top cryptocurrencies as it has many advantages for the citizens and the trading market which leads to bitcoin will rise up slowly. On the other hand, if government put some money into cryptocurrency, they may have big profits as well, even though it's more likely not gonna happen.

[alyssa85]

Something is fishy out here and doesn't feel right at all. From what I interpret it is Russian government will at one hand allow you to use crypto currencies but only the one through the government exchange, basically controlling prices and charging taxes. Those who comply won't be investigated, but those found doing otherwise will be investigated and harassed. Basically they are applying Carrot and stick approach, luring people with Bitcoins and hitting them with taxes. Not a good news for Russian people who use Bitcoins.

I wouldn't be surprised if this was their MO. It would be devastating for cryptocurrencies there and would probably make way for other countries to adopt such measures. There goes "regulations are good for Bitcoin's future"

Everyone has to pay taxes, and Russians are no exemption. States that fail to collect adequate taxes tend to collapse.

Correct, but would you like to pay taxes for everything and anything? By the looks of it, as countries collect further debt due to the crippled fiat system and the people who run it, it only seems that someday even breathing and dreaming will be taxed

That's a political argument, and the solution is not to evade taxes (which is illegal and carries risks if you are caught) but to enter the political arena and have a debate about how much is enough and how much is too much.

There are some people who think that bitcoin is enough, you don't need govts, police forces, schools, sewage systems and so on. That attitude is extremely expensive, because you end up paying premiums to protect yourself, and you end up losing way more money than if you had tried to resolve things democratically with an agreed taxes. Anarchy has been tried before in the history of man and it sucked.

[lionheart78]

Here is the kicker... They will, like most other countries... want to create their own GovCoin to "control" their citizens and if they ban Crypto currencies

now, they would make it difficult for them to justify their own GovCoin. So there are always some hidden agenda behind these moves. Mark my words,

we will soon see some GovCoin for most countries that would be implemented and once this is done... Bitcoin will be banned again. 

This is not a surprised, once finance system took notice of Bitcoin and its technology, government will follow and create their own cryptocurrency to take advantage of the ledger to know the movement of each person's wealth.  They have been dying to know this and with cryptocurrency they can literally monitor the wealth of their citizen since blockchain records all movement and transactions.

[cengsuwuei]

rusian want regulated make the bitcoin as means of payment rightful in 2018
same in japan

[Hydrogen]

This could balance out china's influence on crypto.

It could lead to more stable crypto in the future, and the infusion of cash from japan and russia could also push the value of BTC way up.

Bitcoin Unlimited seems to centralized with chinese miners, if russian and japan miners enter the game, that could make it harder for BU to gain the centralized mining majority they need to fork.

[staff_1307]

At first it will be very difficult for them, because most people did not even hear about Bitcoin.

[MissGrey]

Maybe governments see a future in the cryptocurrencies because the money in future could be pegged to the digital world. Thus also they will be given the opportunity to people to see how would react in learn and use somewhat like this.

[uneng]

Do you think it's good news? You will need to pay fees for the government and your profit will decrease. The regulation thing isn't good, it's just a way to get more money from you to pass to government.
Let governments take care their local currency, but don't allow them to try anything against bitcoin essence and investors profit.

[7788bitcoin]

Do you think it's good news? You will need to pay fees for the government and your profit will decrease. The regulation thing isn't good, it's just a way to get more money from you to pass to government.
Let governments take care their local currency, but don't allow them to try anything against bitcoin essence and investors profit.

Although bitcoin is meant to get people financial freedom, regulation is also required to protect this freedom. For example, anti-money laundry regulations are essential to prevent bitcoin being used by criminals.

[SoulBargain]

Do you think it's good news? You will need to pay fees for the government and your profit will decrease. The regulation thing isn't good, it's just a way to get more money from you to pass to government.
Let governments take care their local currency, but don't allow them to try anything against bitcoin essence and investors profit.

Although bitcoin is meant to get people financial freedom, regulation is also required to protect this freedom. For example, anti-money laundry regulations are essential to prevent bitcoin being used by criminals.

Look for the better side of this too. It would also be beneficial to everyone and to Bitcoin having the support of government and this support leads to a safer world for Bitcoin and also helps countries in certain issues they have been facing like Russia.

They are hoping to use this technology to decrease fraud and corruption, which in turn would decrease government costs.

from https://geopoliticalfutures.com/russia-opens-door-cryptocurrencies/

I highly agree that this financial freedom needs a regulation to protect this freedom. They are doing this regulation for the sake of the government and users against those who are trying to do bad things. This will put things in a much orderly matter. In addition, we cannot do anything though because if the government said so then we must follow it to remain the order and respect the law that is unless it violates your freedom. It is the duty of its citizens to contribute something to the government though and I think they will implement a fair regulation so it will be a win-win situation for everyone.

[DoublerHunter]

Another good type of news for bitcoin. Last time i checked the news, i only see the Japan that open the door for bitcoin and accept it as their second type of method of payment and now another big country which is russia is starting to embrace bitcoin and this will be a huge help for the market of bitcoin to continue reaching the sky and next is the moon!