Russia turns to crypto in desperation

Western sanctions are crippling Russia’s efforts to fight a war and to run its economy. The Duma is to consider a bill to allow a domestic cryptocurrency market.

In a desperate bid to get around the harsh sanctions imposed by Western nations on Russia, the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, will consider a bill that would legalise a crypto market in the country.

According to a report earlier today in Newsweek, the bill would also look to legalise the mining of cryptocurrencies and their sale. The bill would be approved extremely quickly given that this would be in effect from January 1, 2023.

The bill states:

"Digital currency obtained as a result of mining can be disposed of by the person who carried out the mining of this digital currency on the condition that Russian information infrastructure is not used in conducting transactions with it, with the exception of cases of transactions carried out in accordance with the established experimental legal regime,"

Anatoly Aksakov, one of the authors of the bill, and chairman of the Duma Financial Markets Committee, stated that crypto mining had existed in Russia for a long while, but that it didn’t have regulation. He said:

"Large miners who have devoted their lives to this are now turning to us with a request to introduce their activities into the legal space so that they work normally, pay taxes and not feel fear of the structures that check them, including law enforcement agencies. Therefore, it is obvious that the law is very necessary,"

Aksakov is quoted by Reuters as saying that the launch of a cryptocurrency system in Russia would mean that other countries could also use it, and in his words “end America’s control over the global banking system”.

Apart from being kicked out of the SWIFT global banking system, Russia also lacks a diversified economy, and a stable business environment that would help the economy to recover, according to the Wilson Centre, a US-based think tank.

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