(Newswire.net — January 6, 2018) –Rumors from mid-October last year of Russian crypto currency become reality as Russia officially declares it will introduce its own digital currency – the crypto ruble.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has allegedly ordered Russian officials to work on developing a national crypto-currency. According to Sergei Glazev, the economic advisor to president Putin, the currency would serve as a “useful tool” for avoiding economic sanctions from the West.
“This instrument suits us very well for sensitive activity on behalf of the state. We can settle accounts with our counterparties all over the world with no regard for sanctions,” Glazev explained.
The advisor has indicated that crypto-rubles will be equivalent to the conventional ruble, but with a trade that will be “limited in a certain way”, which allows the Kremlin to follow its movements.
It is still not clear whether the central bank of Russia will issue a crypto currency.
Earlier, Mr Putin ordered his cabinet officials to devise a framework for establishing and regulating the digital currency within Russia.
Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov announced in September 2017 that his department would regulate the use of crypto currency in the country by the end of 2017. “There is no purpose to prohibit” crypts because they are “realities,” he said
In October 2017, the Russian president further envisioned new crypto-law regulations, including the registration of miners and the application of the law on securities for the initial offer of coins (ICOs).
There are, however, experts that are not so optimistic about Russian crypto currency. Expressing his doubts, the head of corporate business at Gazprombank, Alan Waxman, told the Financial Times that ”Crypto isn’t the answer in a quick way.”
He added that the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, part of the American Treasury that implements sanctions to the Russian Federation, “can see the means of avoidance”.
The technology is still in its early stages with some financial institutions, such as the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of Japan stating that the blockchain technology was still too “immature” to be used as a payment system.
The overall idea, however, is to diminish US leverage by using US dollar (petro-dollar) as a currency for trading crude oil. Other countries are considering transferring to a crypto currency to avoid the US influence. Beside Russia and Sweden, Venezuela has announced its own cryptocurrency, the “petro”, to fight US President Donald Trump’s financial blockade of the country.
“Many people do not like using US dollars because if the US gets angry at you, they just set enormous pressure on you that can even get you out of business,” financial commentator Jim Rogers told Russia Today in September last year.
“China, Russia, and other countries understand this, and they are trying to move world trade and world finance away from that,” Rogers told RT, Daily Express quoted.
If Russia successfully implements the crypto-ruble, and that could mean that other countries around the would accept this digital currency in crude oil trading, the fall of the U.S. dollar is inevitable. If this happens, experts say, the US economy could face its worst crisis ever.