Mutual cooperation between Russian banks and Central Bank of Russia is going to take place with the sole objective of delaying the payments aimed towards exchanges involved in the business of virtual assets and currencies. The initiative is called as a “strategy” to ensure that “unqualified” investors of crypto from the Russian Federation are restricted to put in their money into purchasing virtual assets on the basis of “emotions”. Most likely the strategy will impact primarily upon crypto businesses such OTC and P2P venues.
Russian Federation as well as the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) are not convinced about Russians going crazy about virtual assets’ investments. The reason for being “skeptical” about crypto is also genuine. It has been noticed by CBR that the new lot of Russian crypto investors is comprise over people whose investment decisions are based upon “emotions”. Instead, of the decision to be well-thought of, it has been noticed that rather investors have been motivated by others to invest.
Sergei Shvetsov, Dy. Chairman of CBR, has said that CBR has to be skeptical when the investment requires acquisition of virtual assets. He said that CBR cannot treat virtual assets under the same league as that of traditional assets, which would be totally absurd. He claimed that as compared to traditional assets, virtual assets are highly speculative as well as have greater risks. One cannot also deny in these times the possibility of crypto investment schemes to be those of “pyramid” or “fraud” schemes. In these circumstances, it would be preposterous to treat virtual assets like traditional assets.
He clarified that the only method of payment acceptable in the country is through the national currency of Russian Federation i.e. “Ruble”. He regarded crypto payment mechanism to be “monetary surrogates” i.e. substitute/alternative of national fiat. He further apprised that this is why CBR is in the process of developing digital Ruble – a Russian project of “CBDC”. He said that the use of digital Ruble will enable crypto investors to use national CBDC as an alternate to privately issued virtual currencies.
Shvetsov furthermore informed that currently a mutual cooperation arrangement has been arranged between CBR and Russian financial institutions. The mutual cooperation would set up a mechanism through which payments to crypto trading venues will be systematically delayed. With this aim in mind, CBR had previously directed banks to stop facilitating transactions executed from banks/credit cards in favor of crypto firms.
The purpose of this limited restriction is to devise a mechanism which could mitigate the chances of crypto frauds. Shvetsov said that it is the priority agenda of CBR to make sure that crypto investors make just decisions based on rationale. There should be no room for any decisions based on “emotions” or “motivation” per se. Otherwise, the chances of getting scammed or defrauded are greater, opined Shvetsov.
