What is Russia Really Thinking About Crypto?

By Rishma Banerjee

As per reports, a former Russian Energy Minister Igor Yusufov has proposed the development of an oil-backed cryptocurrency to the State Duma. This comes at the time when the lower house of the assembly is already slated to review the existing crypto regulations. A local news outlet, Rambler revealed that the construction of a roadmap for the oil-backed cryptocurrency was almost nearing completion, and according to Yusufov, its introduction could indeed have an impact on the influence of the US dollar, on the international system, and could help countries to deal with the fluctuations of fiat currencies. This is in all fairness is a completely different stance than that had been adopted by Russia a few months prior.

This new proposal by the ex-Energy Minister of the country includes the creation of a cryptocurrency settlement system which will be applicable for oil, gas, and other natural resources. This will enable countries to save on currency exchange commissions, as well as to avoid trade restrictions. He also said that the member states of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will be most benefitted by this system. He said,

Perhaps the oil-backed cryptocurrency will be the pioneering project that will create a reliable structure for the cryptographic market as a whole.

He says this, as blockchain technology enables users to verify every step of a transaction, without incurring any additional costs. Another thing that consolidated Yusufov’s claims was that the Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev also said that he was interested in cryptos in spite of the extended bearish phase that the crypto industry has been going through for quite some time now.

This is rather ironical, as Russia had been one of the first nations to criticize Venezuela’a oil-backed cryptocurrency, even refusing to be associated with it, even though relations between the two nations were being strengthened.

Rambler reports that the country is scheduled to introduce new cryptocurrency regulations next month and this set will be an effort to “provide blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies the opportunity to develop.” According to Oleg Nikolaev, a member of the Economic Policy Committee at the State Duma, the regulations are nearly finished as well.