Russia accepts Bitcoin and crypto for cross-border payments, proposes policy change

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  • The Bank of Rus­sia and the country’s Min­istry of Finance have reached an agree­ment to allow cross-bor­der pay­ment set­tle­ment in cryptocurrencies. 
  • The cen­tral bank refused to accept cryp­tocur­ren­cy as legal ten­der and was opposed to the oper­a­tion of local cryp­tocur­ren­cy exchanges. 
  • A sur­vey report revealed that 72% of Rus­sians have nev­er bought Bit­coin, shed­ding light on BTC and cryp­to adop­tion in the country.

Russia’s Deputy Finance Min­is­ter described the acqui­si­tion and the use of cryp­tocur­ren­cy in cross-bor­der set­tle­ments through a new agree­ment. The Cen­tral bank and the Min­istry of Finance have decid­ed upon the accep­tance of Bit­coin and cryp­tocur­ren­cies for cross-bor­der pay­ment settlement. 

Also read: ApeCoin price: Can stak­ing and mar­ket­place AIP duo push APE price to $10?

Russian officials approve crypto use for cross-border payment settlement

The Bank of Rus­sia and the Min­istry of Finance have report­ed­ly reached an agree­ment to allow the use of Bit­coin and cryp­tocur­ren­cies in cross-bor­der pay­ment set­tle­ments. Kom­m­er­sant, a Rus­sia-based out­let, report­ed on Thurs­day that Russia’s Deputy Finance Min­is­ter Alex­ei Moi­seev said the gov­ern­ment depart­ment has agreed “on the whole” with the cen­tral bank over a rule that would let res­i­dents send cross-bor­der pay­ments using cryptocurrencies.

The pro­posed pol­i­cy change was aimed at allow­ing Russ­ian nation­als access to dig­i­tal wal­lets. Moi­seev was quot­ed in the report:

[The pol­i­cy] gen­er­al­ly describes how to acquire cryp­tocur­ren­cy, what can be done with it, and how it can or can­not be set­tled with it in the first place in cross-bor­der settlements.

Accord­ing to Russ­ian news agen­cies, the Bank of Rus­sia is report­ed­ly opposed to allow­ing cryp­to exchanges to oper­ate legal­ly and not accept­ing cryp­tocur­ren­cy as legal ten­der. Moi­seev said, 

Now that peo­ple are open­ing cryp­to wal­lets out­side the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion, it is nec­es­sary to do this in Rus­sia with enti­ties super­vised by the cen­tral bank, which are required to com­ply with Anti-Mon­ey Laun­der­ing and Know Your Cus­tomer requirements.

Inter­est­ing­ly, Rus­sia has had a mixed rela­tion­ship with cryp­to. In 2020, cryp­to pay­ments were banned in Rus­sia. In July 2022, Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin signed the bill into law, plac­ing an effec­tive ban on the use of dig­i­tal assets as payments. 

Rus­sia soft­ened its stance on the use of cryp­to pay­ments for cross-bor­der set­tle­ments in May 2022, when trade min­is­ter Denis Man­tur­ov sug­gest­ed Rus­sia would legal­ize cryp­to pay­ments “soon­er or later.”

It’s impor­tant to note that accord­ing to a July 2022 sur­vey con­duct­ed by Switzer­land-based cryp­tocur­ren­cy wal­let provider Tangem, 72% of Russ­ian investors have nev­er bought cryp­to like Bit­coin. There­fore the pro­posed pol­i­cy change dri­ven by the Bank of Rus­sia and the Min­istry of Finance is like­ly to dri­ve the adop­tion of BTC in the country. 

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