Tuesday, August 6, 2024 – The state Duma, the lower house of the Russia parliament, announced the strategic shift of accepting cryptocurrency for international payments, with the ongoing sanction responding to the setbacks of Russia’s major trading partners.
The sanctions imposed by the US and its allies on Russia were caused by Russia-Ukraine conflict that started in February 2022.
The new law will be effective in September, and the initial transactions are expected to be carried out before the end of this year, Russian central bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina said 1
The bill will be passed to the upper Federation Council prior to the finalized approval by President Vladimir Putin.
The cross-border payments Russia made with leading trading partners China, the USA, and India were delayed by the tightening of western regulations towards Russia.
Lawmakers reported a novel experimental infrastructure would be designed exclusively for cryptocurrency payments, yet the groundwork is in the pipeline.
Nevertheless, the Russian central bank proposed a ban on using and mining cryptocurrency within Russia, concerning the threats that could arrive at the financial sector.
The new law issued by the Russian government will not raise the prevailing ban on crypto within Russia.
The central bank reports said that the delay in payments caused an 8% fall in Russian imports in the second quarter of 2024.
Except for cross-border payments, the Russian government is still operating the transactions using dollars and euros, and following the international SWIFT system, perhaps this would lead Russia to a second sanction, Reuters reported.
- Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/technology/russia-launch-international-payments-crypto-before-end-2024-2024-07-30/ [↩]
