#Russia

German Klimenko, Vladimir Putin’s internet counselor assigned to the position by the Russian president in early 2016, stated in an interview to local news service Lenta.ru that accepting bitcoin is a crime. “Bitcoin is not the first one, there are other settlement means. Accepting bitcoin as a payment for anything is inacceptable because it is […]

According to Russian Ministry of finance, so-called money surrogates, a term usually encompassing cryptocurrencies, may be a threat both to the country’s economy and national security.

Last week, Russia’s ‘official’ bitcoin enthusiast and, as a second job, the head of Sberbank, German Gref, has finally found an ally, Alexei Kurdin, former minister for finance. A bit earier, speaking at Gaidar Forum, Gref stated that “all government systems, and education, including everything from kindergartens to universtities, have to be changed in the […]

During the business lunch at Sberbank of Russia, the bank’s chairman German Gref and former minister for finance of Russia Alexei Kudrin shared their vision of blockchain’s potential in Russia. In particular, they described the way the technology could possibly alter the country’s public management. According to Interfax Russia, Alexei Kudrin said: “Basing on what […]

Following the self-inflicted ban of Bitstamp, Russia-based users cannot access one of the biggest bitcoin exchanges, BTC-e. Notably, the block did not cover all regions of the country as yet. The screenshots provided hereunder show what Moscow-based users may see when attempting to access the website. However, we managed to access both sites from other […]

According to an article posted by Bankir.ru, Tatfondband creates a fintech lab in Kazan (Tatarstan, Russia) in cooperation with venture investment fund Life.SREDA. The companies expect the companies selected for acceleration will engage in development of blockchain-related services.

Lyudmila Bokova, deputy chairwoman at Russian Federation Council’s costitutional committee, states that propagation of cryptocurrencies in Russia shall be deemed inevitable. For that reason, she believes, the government should consider regulating cryptocurrency instead of bannning it. Last week, the head of Russian Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin stated that his agency insists on introducing criminal penalties […]

Recent development of affairs in Russia may signify that Russian officials have divided into two camps. While usually depicted as a monolith, Russian government en masse incorporates two opposing groups, usually dubbed securocrats and techlibs (an acronym for technology liberals). The former usually have something to do with various law enforcement or intelligence agencies, while […]