Russian Federation Central Bank approved the first trading platform for cryptocurrencies, Russia seems to be getting extremely close to legalizing and regulating cryptocurrencies
The Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, Yury Trutnev
Last week news.Bitcoin.com reported on the Russian Deputy Finance Minister, Alexei Moiseev’s proposed bitcoin regulation, and the possibility of digital assets being listed on Moscow’s stock exchange. Now the country’s Deputy Prime Minister, Yury Trutnev claims the Russian Federation Central Bank has approved the first cryptocurrency trading platform for private investors.
Moiseev further stated that bitcoin was a high risk “financial pyramid” and that, in order to protect consumers, bitcoin exchange should be performed only by “qualified investors” on the Moscow Stock Exchange. As such, “ordinary people” would be prohibited from buying and selling the cryptocurrency.
Trutnev spoke about the new online system "Voskhod", which will attract private investment.
This platform was the first one in Russia to receive permission from the Central Bank of Russia for operations with cryptocurrencies, TASS reported .
“We are considering the possibility of creating a platform for trading with cryptocurrencies. The central bank has supported us. The system "Voskhod" was the first in the country to receive the right to work with cryptocurrencies",- Trutnev said.
He noted that the mining of bitcoins will allow more efficient use of surplus electricity in some regions.
There are regions where there is an overabundance of energy - both here and in Siberia. And there is no way to redistribute this surplus to other regions, so you can create companies that will thus dispose of unconnected volumes of electricity, and people will be able to earn on this" he added.
Earlier, Trutnev had already proposed using excess electricity for the cryptocurrency, two of the nation’s energy companies, Evrosibenergo and Gazprom, possibly partnering with local bitcoin miners. Trutnev details there is an abundance of electricity in particular regions within the nation that could help the mining industry a great deal. Trutnev explains currently, energy companies have a hard time distributing the excess electricity.
"There is no way to redistribute this surplus to other regions, so you can create companies that will thus dispose of unconnected volumes of electricity, and people will be able to earn on this"
The central bank is considering the issue of creating a national digital currency based on the technology of distributed registries.
Recall that three days ago, Russian police officers detained three "members of a criminal group" in Kostroma who were carrying out operations with crypto-currency bitcoin.
Google Says Russia’s Interest in Bitcoin up 220%, Mining 560%, Ethereum 760%
Google has performed an analysis on search queries of Russian residents for the first half of 2017 for information related to cryptocurrency, according to local publications. The company revealed its findings on Thursday, stating that:
Despite the fact that the first cryptocurrency was launched in 2009, the greatest surge of interest of Russian users to this industry came in the first half of 2017. Just imagine, from January to June the number of requests for the industry as a whole increased by more than 250%.
In addition, users also searched for cryptocurrency mining information more frequently, resulting in the total number of mining-related searches increasing by 560%. “Cryptocurrencies and mining also fell into the top 100 queries with the words ‘how’ and ‘what is’,” Rusbase detailed, adding that the number of requests for specific cryptocurrencies also increased by the same percentage.
Furthermore, Google noted that in the first six months of the year, the number of requests for Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) “significantly increased,” but did not name specific figures.
Highest Growth Regions
“There is an opinion that the trends are spreading from the center of Russia to the regions, but not in this case,” Vestifinance quoted Google, adding that:
The biggest increase in interest in the industry was seen in the Khabarovsk Territory (+ 309% of requests). At the same time, the increase in the number of requests for individual cryptocurrencies – Ethereum (+ 1114%) and Bitcoin (+ 317%) – also turned out to be above the national average in this region.
Google Says Russia's Interest in Bitcoin up 220%, Ethereum 760%, Mining 560%
Fishermen Village, Kaliningrad
Meanwhile, Kaliningrad residents were entering mining-related search requests over 674% more in the first half of 2017, the news outlet detailed.
Last week, the head of Kaliningrad Region Development Corporation, Vladimir Zarudny, talked about attracting cryptocurrency mining operations to Kaliningrad. He believes that by 2018 cryptocurrency will be legal in Russia, and its production will become a new type of business, according to a post on the corporation’s website.
In February, Klops.ru reported that Presidential Commissioner for Entrepreneurs’ Rights Boris Titov suggested that Kaliningrad should be chosen as the pilot site for bitcoin to be used as a currency. “For example, you can pay for gasoline with bitcoins,” the publication quoted him saying
Crypto is gaining huge popularity around the world really fast , if it will continue this way we might end up having another , better payment system in the near future