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Bank of Russia Calls for Full Ban on Crypto (coindesk.com) 104

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Russia must ban cryptocurrencies, the country's central bank said in a report released Thursday. From a report: The report, "Cryptocurrencies: trends, risks, measures," was presented during an online press conference with Elizaveta Danilova, the director of the Bank of Russia's Financial Stability Department. The report says cryptocurrencies are volatile and widely used in illegal activities such as fraud. By offering an outlet for people to take their money out of the national economy, they risk undermining it and making the regulator's job of maintaining optimal monetary policies harder, the report says.

The bank, therefore, suggest Russia needs new laws and regulations that effectively ban any crypto-related activities in the country. In particular, cryptocurrency issuance and organization of its circulation in Russia must be banned. The ban should apply to exchanges, over-the-counter trading desks and peer-to-peer platforms. An existing ban on using crypto for payments should be reinforced, and punishment should be introduced for buying or selling goods, services and labor by Russian individuals and businesses, the report suggests.
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Bank of Russia Calls for Full Ban on Crypto More

Bank of Russia Calls for Full Ban on Crypto

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  • ...Then how will they get their ransomware payments?

    • They can steal, launder and cash out in the west just fine and then import the western fiat currency generated. No cryptocurrency ever needs to cross the Russian part of the internet for it to be useful for Russian crime.

    • Guardian overdose again?

      First of all, this is the central bank we are talking about, not the handful of miscreants which cash in on ransom payments. It has been adamant against crypto ever since it went mainstream. Its position never changed. It only hardened. That is the NORMAL position for a central bank of a major country. They do not like financial operations which evade their regulations and control. To that extent it is no different from its counterparts in let's say Japan or the Eu.

      Second, the on

  • "Sound Money" (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "Sound Money" - @davetroy [twitter.com]:

    There are people who are genuinely trying to talk intelligently about cryptocurrencies, but can’t because they don’t have historical background. This thread tries to correct that by suggesting required reading. First, it’s necessary to know what problem it attempts to solve.

    Bitcoin is designed to be "sound money." It can’t be controlled by government. What’s mine is mine, what’s yours is yours, and can’t be "diluted" by shadowy "central ban

    • Re:"Sound Money" (Score:5, Insightful)

      by holophrastic ( 221104 ) on Thursday January 20, 2022 @12:55PM (#62191789)

      Putting aside the obvious antisemitism, this is what I came here to say.

      Any highly-fluctuating item, especially currency, is just one more thing for money-aficionados to speculate & trade, and for everyone else to simply lose, usually slowly. It's a casino. It's a lottery ticket.

      I don't live in the USA, and I don't live in Russia. But I do live a very large country with a very well-controlled banking system. We regulate the hell out of everything, and as a result, we've weathered economic depressions, world catastrophes, and the current pandemic without any significant economic loss. Even having managed to give away exceptional amounts of free money over the last two years -- with little more than a few clicks I might add -- prices for things have remained exceptionally close to what they always were.

      Bitcoin, until it too is regulated by the economy, is just the death of all of that.

      Perhaps the difference is that my country's economy seems to be managed and regulated well -- at least for personal stability.

      I'm 40-odd years old, and have zero complaints. Stability is, quite honestly, my only desire.

  • Perhaps the most corrupted country on this planet wants to prevent mere mortals from using crypto. And, of course, their transactions worth billions USD dollars are not controlled in any shape or form. "You're a mere mortal and want to buy or sell crypto? We're coming after you".

    Fortunately, the only way to prevent people from exchanging crypto is to shut the Internet down which renders this rhetoric null and void.

    • Wants to do something doesn't mean it's inherently terrible. We use a lot of technology in the Nazis developed. And I highly recommend you don't look up the history of early medical science and what we did to learn what we know. You'd be horrified especially with the OBGYN stuff and the founding of modern gynecology.

      In this case we're not going to see anything nearly as horrible as that. This is all pretty standard regulation. Cryptocurrency has pretty clearly become nothing more than money laundering a
    • Good luck, they are all coming after you now, just a matter of time now.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by leonbev ( 111395 )

      The corruption is probably the main reason why this will never happen. The Russian cryptolocker gangs need cryptocurrency to make their business model work, and at least some of them are likely state sponsored. Putin will make this "problem" go away.

  • I almost agree with the Russia's central bank. Cryptocurrencies have devolved into purely speculative, unusable, resource consuming junk. They have no legitimate use anymore in any country with a functional central bank. However, in countries like Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Argentina and Russia where there is a risk of the local currency devaluing or in the case of Russia a history of the banks outright stealing deposits then, as volatile as they are, cryptocurrencies maybe considered a viable way of safely st

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Artem S. Tashkinov ( 764309 )

      Fiat currencies have devolved into purely speculative, unusable, resource consuming junk not really backed up with anything along with a very high inflation rate.

      FTFY [bloomberg.com].

      They have no legitimate use anymore in any country with a functional central bank.

      The False Narrative Of Bitcoin's Role In Illicit Activity [forbes.com]

      However, in countries like Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Argentina and Russia where there is a risk of the local currency devaluing or in the case of Russia a history of the banks outright stealing deposits th

      • Re:As an early adopter of cryptocurrencies (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Junta ( 36770 ) on Thursday January 20, 2022 @12:45PM (#62191741)

        FTFY [bloomberg.com].

        Yes, it's not good that USD saw 6-7% inflation. Let's look at BTC or ETH over the course of the same year... depending on where you measure, you might have had 100% inflation or 50% deflation. Trotting out that the USD had a significant problem by suffering 7% inflation serves only to highlight just how much worse the cryptocurrencies are in this regard.

        Make up your mind, please.

        He's saying some localities have more trustworthy currencies than other places, and he personally sees some national currencies as less trustworthy than crypto-currency, and others as more trustworthy. This isn't an inconsistency, but a nuanced comparison among national currencies and crypto currencies. I personally differ in opinion as I think if your national currency is screwed then no matter what currency you want to use, you'd need to leave the nation in question to escape the real-world consequences that the national currency problems represent. If you do think you have viable exit strategies then better to have a healthy supply of likely destination currencies than crypto-currencies.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by steveha ( 103154 )

          Let's look at BTC or ETH over the course of the same year... depending on where you measure, you might have had 100% inflation or 50% deflation.

          IMHO this is because cryptocurrencies are a relatively new thing and the market is still collectively deciding how much they should be worth.

          What's more important to me is the cause of any inflation. With fiat currencies, such as the US dollar, the inflation is caused (more than any other single cause) by the government creating more money from nowhere, diluting th

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Junta ( 36770 )

            IMHO this is because cryptocurrencies are a relatively new thing and the market is still collectively deciding how much they should be worth.

            Let's then pick something that has pretty much had all the time to mature: gold. It's value in the last 5 years has gone up by 73% or down by 20% depending on where you start and stop from. Not as severe as the BTC/ETH, but way more volatile than USD in real purchasing power. So sure, there's some novelty driven volatility, but broadly speaking society doesn't do a great job at arriving at consensus of value in an uncoordinated fashion.

            What's more important to me is the cause of any inflation. With fiat currencies, such as the US dollar, the inflation is caused (more than any other single cause) by the government creating more money from nowhere, diluting the buying power of the pre-existing money. And this is something that simply does not (cannot!) happen with cryptocurrency. And therefore, IMHO, this is the main reason people are interested in cryptocurrency.

            This was the logic for the gold standard, and the modern economy under

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      One of the reasons Russia has an economy smaller than Italy's is that a bunch of oligarchs can "safely store wealth," in large part outside the country.

      Storing wealth is bad for economies. *Using wealth* is what you want to do. That's the underlying reason why economies aren't zero sum games and deflation is awful.

  • "DeFi" = "Deregulated Finance" (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Don't let the crypto bros fool you: "DeFi" means "Deregulated Finance", not "decentralized" as they're trying to pass it off as.

    The crypto bros all want to wrestle control away from governments, and do it without any oversight, and hence no accountability. Why else do you think they're all throwing a fit whenever the specter of regulation comes up (you know, the thing all legitimate currencies have to adhere to?)

  • But good for Russia. Crypto uses a ton of electricity, is heavily prone to market and currency manipulation, has already centralized around the exchanges making it useless for the sake of freedom and is the reason why none of us can get new graphics cards.

    When you have something that is universally bad for all of society except a very tiny number of players who happen to be involved in doing the bad thing it's okay to ban it. For the same reason we regulate other aspects of our financial market and ban

    • Re:Never thought I'd live to see today (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Artem S. Tashkinov ( 764309 ) on Thursday January 20, 2022 @12:06PM (#62191593) Homepage

      Crypto uses a ton of electricity, is heavily prone to market and currency manipulation, has already centralized around the exchanges making it useless for the sake of freedom and is the reason why none of us can get new graphics cards. When you have something that is universally bad for all of society except a very tiny number of players who happen to be involved in doing the bad thing it's okay to ban it. For the same reason we regulate other aspects of our financial market and ban other high risk and low reward securities and exchanges.

      Please enlighten us how day/high frequency trading is regulated all over the world and how it has any positive effect on economy aside from rendering over 90% of its participants bankrupt. And there are dozens of other funny activities people are engaged in which bring about nothing but destruction to this planet.

      Heck just anti money laundering rules consistently applied and enforced would probably do it.

      Name me at least a single country where AML (anti-money laundering) laws actually work. I'm talking about fiat currencies which are used for laundering [forbes.com].

      If you can't launder money with crypto what can you do with it?

      Maybe you're keen to solve crime which doesn't involve crypto first? Tell me how it works, I'm all ears. Most people continue to buy drugs using fiat money because crypto is easily traceable [nytimes.com] and not only that, most crypto exchanges nowadays have very strict KYC policies - a lot more stringent than what even real banks have. Your post is a perfect example of parroting ages old myths, lies and falsehoods about crypto and how only criminals use it.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by vivian ( 156520 )

        The entire global banking system including credit card transactions, electronic fund transfers and share trading (if which HFT is only a part) consumes about 263 TWH per year, supporting and facilitating the world's GDP of about $80Trillion

        All gold mining consumes 240 TWH per year, and produces $115 Billion worth of gold (2500 tons) per year

        Bitcoin alone consumes 113 TWH per year - with which considering the total value of all bitcoins is only worth about 2% of all the world's money, and only handles a t

    • When crypto was new I thought it was just a cool if impractical alternative to real money. When that cool project endangers the planet I think it's time to pull the plug! I know that will upset some people, who may have to get real jobs...

  • China, Russia et al are against free flow of information. They're already restricting internet as it is (Russia's latest action was against Tor), and decentralised open technologies that function on the internet are naturally the next target. Banning crypto would effectively mean banning blockchain technology (unless of course it's state controlled), because tokens are an integral part of any blockchain. This is about power and an effort to remove concepts such as decentralised, open, private and global fro

    • Your analogy is false. Sorry, blockchain would be useful for things that demand non-repudiation and historical accuracy; where does it say it has to be for currency purposes? You must of one of the unfortunates that bought BTC at $60K.

  • In a country widely known for laundering money from corrupt activities, the state bank wants to prevent people from laundering money.

    Or will this apply only to the proletariat, as usual?

  • Bank of Russia Calls for Full Ban on Crypto

    I'm not using their home banking wabsite then!

  • Worried about moving money out of the economy when a significant amount of real estate around the world is owned by Russian 'investors'? The asset-stripping oligarchs are not just Russian of course but it seems ironic that when the big boys want to commit fraud/tax avoidance it's all perfectly legal, as long as you can afford the right accountant!

  • "Both Sides" (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    As typical, the posts on here reflect the usual from both sides:

    - The anti-crypto crowd claims this is crypto's needed reckoning
    - The crypto bros claim this is the establishment being scared

  • She's Not Wrong (Score:2, Troll)

    by GlennC ( 96879 )

    It appears that the biggest uses of cryptocurrency are money laundering, ransomware payments, and purchases of illicit and/or illegal substances.

    It also appears highly volatile and inefficient for exchange, so it's not particularly fit for use as a currency.

    Creation of new coins seems to use a lot of energy, and the coin itself has no useful function outside the blockchain, so it looks to have no real value in and of itself.

    This looks to me like a solution in search of a problem.

  • Cryptocurrencies that rely on proof of work, or indeed proof of space, are what needs banning on two grounds: 1 is excessive consumption of resources for no material gain; 2 is the effect they have on markets of e.g. GPUs an storage devices, effectively pricing everybody else out of the market. Leaving this to the free market is a recipe for market failure.

    On the other hand, blockchain that doesn't do this should be regarded as ok, but regulated by financial authorities so as to prevent it being a vector fo

  • I believe this is step 3 of the Gandhi Sequence.

  • Putin wants a monopoly on crime in his country.

    He has no problem with criminals using crypto to extort the West. He just wants to make sure they're *his* criminals and he gets a cut.

  • The report says cryptocurrencies are volatile and widely used in illegal activities such as fraud.

    Considering the fraud dictator Putin is committing against the Russian people, he should be head over heels in love with crypto. It will make it that much easier for him to hide the billions of rubles he has stolen [theguardian.com].

  • They know that after they invade Ukraine, the sanctions imposed on them will kill the rouble. So to prevent Russians from protecting their money by converting into crypto they want to ban it.

  • How are their state-sponsored cybercriminal operatives going to get paid if they can't demand cryptocurrency in their ransomware? It'll be way too obvious if they start demaning payment in vodka.

  • Can we be more clear please? (Score:3)

    by sconeu ( 64226 ) on Thursday January 20, 2022 @03:11PM (#62192263) Homepage Journal

    It would be nice if people distinguished between crypto (as in encryption) and crypto (as in cryptocurrencies).

    Kind of like the free-as-in-beer vs. free-as-in-freedom distinction.

    Reading the headline, I thought the bank wanted to ban encryption.

    • "Reading the headline, I thought the bank wanted to ban encryption."

      Because you're ignorant of context or just excessively pedantic.

  • They are hating. Weâ(TM)ll make sure you get a loan from www.wealthbuilders365.com
  • Now a GPU, graphics processing unit, may cost more than a computer. Three thousand for a GPU, this is ridiculous.

  • Banks should ban conversion to real money. Crypto wastes incredible amounts of power and its only uses are crime and gambling

  • Just get the all the major ISP routers to block port 6667and port 7777 blockchain.traffic. Could use VPNs to get around that, but hasn't Russia stopped those now too?

  • So they're trying to drive the price down. Then once they've accumulated all they want, they will announce "We have reconsidered and are lifting the ban."
  • Trump pay his hookers for their "golden rain" services? Once he's flitted from the courts in America.

    Actually, I never for one second believed the Steele Dossier allegations. One look at the guy and you know he's a dedicated follower of hardsports.

  • I already predicted this almost a year ago. Then China first outlawed them. Now Russia. Others will follow. Already bitcoin is dumping and will soon hit 30K, then it's a race to 20K. No support between 20 and 30k. Then to 0. Get out now while you still can. Eat that ugly toad now or a much larger ugly toad later.

  • So "Of Course" they want to ban it. The USA won't be too far behind.

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