Russian Presidential Advisor: Accepting Bitcoin Is A Crime; Blockchain Technology Is Amazingly Interesting

Russia lawmakers have been pushing to ban digital currency such as bitcoin in the country and have submitted a new draft bill to the country’s legislative assembly Duma in December. In addition, a recent report from the Rossiiskaya Gazeta stated that the Russian Finance Ministry has proposed amendments to the Criminal Code. Under the new amendment, those who are guilty of issuing cryptocurrency would be “fined in the amount of half a million rubles, or sent to correctional work for up to two years”.

Now according to a new report, recently appointed Internet advisor to Russian president Vladimir Putin German Klimenko told Lenta.ru, a Russian news service, that accepting bitcoin is a crime, as translated by Forklog.

Klimenko told Lenta.ru, “Accepting bitcoin as a payment for anything is unacceptable because it is a crime…Any introduction of an outside currency into the balance is always an independence on whether it’s counterfeit or not, it’s always a blow on economy”.

He further said that when the use of digital currencies becomes critical, everyone will “certainly” ban it. However, Klimenko was quite positive about the blockchain technology that underpins bitcoin.

He said that the technology is “amazingly interesting”. He explained that while one cannot trace the way a 5,000 rubles bank note has made, blockchain technology enables to trace every note and every ruble as they will have a marking, and a person will be able to look up the history and find out what came whence.

“I expect lots of experiments with the blockchain technology. They’ll attempt various issuances and novelties at different exchange. They’ll be watching, as replacing software right away is shifting to a completely different reality. We cannot even imagine how different it will be. When every ruble has a recorded owner, it will become a truly different world,” he added.