Russia has been leaning towards cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum in recent times. Sanctions against the country since it began its evasion of Ukraine had piled up, and the government had begun to turn to crypto to circumvent these sanctions. In its most recent move, the Central Bank of Russia has moved to legalize crypto for cross-border payments.

Russia Making Trade Better

Over the last couple of months, the Russian government has been open about its stance on crypto. It had previously said that the country was exploring ways in which it could use cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum to help improve payments in the country. Now, it has taken concrete steps to do so.

On September 22nd, the Central Bank of Russia announced that it had come to an agreement with the Ministry of Finance to allow crypto payments for cross-border use. What this means is that why crypto will not be a method of payment in the country, individuals and businesses will be able to use it to carry out transactions using crypto outside the borders of Russia. It would also allow residents to have access to and operate digital asset wallets in the country.

Market cap drops below $880 billion | Source: Crypto Total Market Cap on TradingView.com

The bill contained ways of how individuals and businesses are able to get crypto, what they can do with said cryptocurrencies, and how the payments will be carried out. Russia also wants to keep up with the rest of the world, according to Aleksey Moiseev, the Minister of Finance.

Moiseev alluded to the fact that people outside Russia are able to access and use digital asset wallets. As such, residents of the country should be able to access it though. However, he called for regulation for cryptocurrencies so they can not be used by bad actors for nefarious purposes. “Now people are opening crypto wallets outside the Russian Federation. It is necessary that this can be done in Russia, that this is done by entities supervised by the Central Bank, which are required to comply with the requirements of anti-money laundering legislation, and first of all, of course, to know their client,” the finance minister said.

Accepting cryptocurrency as a means of cross-border payments will help the country evade the many financial sanctions that have been levied against it. Russia is also keeping a closed fist on crypto usage by allowing it only outside the country and involving entities that are supervised by the central bank.

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