Tuesday October 10th the Russian Kremlin held a surprising meeting with top administration officials including the Finance Minister, Central Bank Governor/Deputy Governor & Qiwi CEO Sergei Solonin. In this meeting Putin urged his attendees to support cryptocurrency innovation stating its relevance not only applies to Russia but increasingly across the world. This is a stark change in behavior for the Russian government as they have been almost mirroring China with talks of bans and condemnation. Strangely enough a lot of news outlets are reporting of this meeting as a doom and gloom hammer coming down on bitcoin and blockchain but this couldn't be further from the truth.
Also in June, Putin met with Vitalik Buterin founder of Ethereum giving his blessing for Russia to develop blockchain technology.
Another interesting thing to note is the timing of this. We've been receiving reports for months now about the involvement of Bitcoin in the DPRK (North Korea) as a funding solution to sanctions. Also interesting to note is that the Kremlin recently met with a top North Korean diplomat utilizing the Las Vegas American Massacre as an opportunity to strategize with the hermit nation.
Could this be in a ploy to promote cryptocurrencies in a bid to circumvent the American Government? A very interesting thought. Regardless of the motive this is certainly a large change in tune from a government which in late 2013 publicly stated they believed Bitcoin to be created by the American CIA.