Pavel Zavalny, the head of Russia’s congressional energy committee, said that the nation is going to legalise the use of cryptocurrency in international trade even though President Vladimir Putin rejected the idea last year.
According to a report by the local news outlet TASS, the Bank of Russia and the country’s Ministry of Finance have changed their minds about cryptocurrencies and now recognise the need to legalise their use in cross-border transactions.
According to TASS, the two government bodies have decided that continuing without allowing cryptocurrencies to be used as a legal payment method for international trade is “impossible.”
The action is being taken as Russia experiments with the best way to control the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency markets. The largest nation in the world has looked for alternatives to the U.S. dollar in order to ensure the effective exchange of its commodities despite being under heavy Western sanctions.
Pavel Zavalny, the head of the nation’s congressional energy committee, stated in March that the nation was open to accepting bitcoin as payment for the export of natural gas and other resources.
“When it comes to our ‘friendly’ countries, like China or Turkey, which don’t pressure us, then we have been offering them for a while to switch payments to national currencies, like rubles and yuan,” Zavalny said at the time. “With Turkey, it can be lira and rubles. So there can be a variety of currencies, and that’s a standard practice. If they want bitcoin, we will trade in bitcoin.”
Russia was reportedly “actively discussing” using cryptocurrencies in foreign trade in May, according to a report.
Now that such a plan is about to become reality, the tide has turned. President Vladimir Putin last year rejected the idea in an interview at the Russian Energy Week conference in Moscow.
“I believe that it has value,” Putin said at the time, referring to bitcoin. “But I don’t believe it can be used in the oil trade.”
TASS reports that efforts are still being made to establish the legal framework required for cross-border cryptocurrency transactions in Russia.