Russians are conducting crypto deals worth a total of around $648 million per day, the country’s finance ministry says.
Cryptocurrency usage in Russia is “only continuing to grow,” Deputy Finance Minister Ivan Chebeskov told media representatives this week, Russian media outlet RBC reported.
“We’ve repeatedly said that millions of citizens are involved in crypto trading,” Chebeskov said. “That represents trillions of rubles’ worth of [purchases] and savings. The annual transaction volume in Russia is over [$130 billion]. All of that is currently occurring in unregulated spaces. It’s outside the scope of our control.”
Moscow says it wants to fast-track regulations this year, aware that the size of its crypto derivatives and other blockchain-powered financial instruments has grown beyond the $13 billion mark.
Fast track
Vladimir Chistyukhin, First Deputy Chairman of the Russian central bank, told reporters that he expected lawmakers to approve new regulations for the crypto market during the State Duma’s upcoming spring session.
Both the government and the bank now back regulations, Chistyukhin said.
“[We] will provide a transition period for market participants to obtain the necessary licenses, develop the necessary internal documents to begin operations, and legalise this part of the [financial] markets.”
The law will focus mainly on exchanges and will impose a system of penalties for trading platforms that fail to obtain operating permits.
The ministry said it made its calculations using the anti-money laundering agency Rosfinmonitoring’s Transparent Blockchain platform.
Senior officials from the Moscow Exchange, Russia’s biggest stock market, said they also wanted to “compete for a slice” of the crypto “pie.”
The exchange and several of Russia’s biggest banks said they were ready to provide their customers with a range of crypto-related services once the legislation rolls out.
Crypto market movers
Bitcoin is down by almost 1% over the past 24 hours, currently trading at $68,991.
Ethereum is down 3% in the past 24 hours, and is priced at $1,999.
