Russians Transact $5 Billion In Crypto Annually – Bank Of Russia

Although Russia has become a global leader in the cryptocurrency market, the Bank of Russia is still doubtful about Bitcoin. Reports show that Russians are among the world’s most active participants in the crypto sector.

The Bank of Russia has published a new review on financial stability. This review was unveiled on November 25, 2021, pointing out the nation’s growing role in the $2.8 trillion market. While citing estimations that were reported by major local banks in July, the Bank of Russia indicated that the total annual volumes of cryptocurrency transactions of the Russian population amount to over 350 billion rubles, or $5 billion.

It is not yet clear whether the Bank of Russia has changed these estimations since the price of Bitcoin has nearly doubled since July, exploding from $30,000 to trade around $60,000 currently. In that report, the Bank of Russia also noted that the Russian Federation is among the global leaders with the regards to the visits to the Binance crypto exchange.

Based on the data from the digital intelligence provider SimilarWeb, Russia is now the second biggest in terms of total traffic that came on Binance after Turkey. The Russian central bank also noted that Russia is one of the biggest bitcoin mining nations in the world, coming in third in terms of the national hash rates, as reported by the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index as of August 2021.

Despite acknowledging Russia’s leading role and position in the world’s crypto market, the Bank of Russia still highlighted the major risks that come with the nascent sector. It highlighted even the risks that are associated with financial stability, investor protection, criminal financing, money laundering, and ESG risks.

Bank Of Russia To Monitor Crypto Market Closely

The central bank never suggested any immediate measures to address and resolve these challenges. However, it said that it would continue monitoring the market closely to determine possible threats:

“The relationship between digital currencies and the financial sector remains limited at the moment. However, the rapid growth and the widespread adoption of digital currencies would pose higher risks both globally and for the Russian financial market.”

In that context, the Bank of Russia has taken a hard stand on cryptos, with Governor Elvira Nabiullina insisting that all responsible governments need to drive crypto adoption. The central bank is famous for not authorizing the local banks to deal with cryptocurrency and promoting the use of its currency instead.

That has led to a situation where there is no Russian cryptocurrency exchange that can now offer its services legally.