Tatarstan wants to become pilot zone to regulate Russia’s crypto market

However, Tatarstan considers the Central Bank’s proposal to ban cryptocurrencies fair

A public test zone for cryptocurrencies can be created in Kazan. Tatarstan Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media Ayrat Khayrullin made such an offer.

Khayrullin called the Central Bank’s recent offer to ban cryptocurrencies and their mining in Russia fair and stressed that cryptocurrency deals annually amount to $5 billion, and over 200 million people are involved in this.

The republican minister offered to agree with the Central Bank, Federal Security Service and government to on a pilot zone within the laws On Experimental Legal Regimes and Digital Financial Assets. It is expected that with the help of the pilot zone it will be possible to see “how those elements of infrastructure work under the state and regulator’s control”.

In this context, Khayrullin mentioned Innopolis’s experience where a project of the unmanned taxi was implemented as an experiment.

The Central Bank said that they considered the development of mechanisms blocking transactions aimed to buy or sell cryptocurrency with a usual currency a necessary measure. The Central Bank is concerned that the use of cryptocurrencies to pay for goods and services creates a risk that the ruble will lose its sovereignty.

After that, the Russian Finance Ministry developed a concept to regulate the cryptocurrency market. Director of the Department of Financial Policy of the Ministry of Finance Ivan Chebeskov said that the use of cryptocurrencies shouldn’t be banned, it was more effective to regulate this sphere.

Telegram’s founder Pavel Durov is also against the ban of the Bank of Russia. According to him, this will lead to an outflow of IT specialists and the destruction of some sectors of the high-tech economy.

Putin thinks Russia has competitive advantages in cryptocurrency mining

Russian President Vladimir Putin also commented on this issue on 27 January. He claimed that he had heard of discussions about the regulation of cryptocurrencies and then asked the Central Bank and government to come to an agreement and report on the results.

“The Central Bank isn’t an obstacle on our road to technological progress and itself takes necessary efforts to introduce the latest technologies in this sphere. As for the cryptocurrencies, the Central Bank has its own opinion. Experts of the Central Bank say that the expansion of this activity carries certain risks, first of all, for citizens of the country,” the president added.

At the same time, Putin thinks that Russia has competitive advantages in cryptocurrency mining.

Margarita Golovatenko