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Russian Finance Ministry believes there’s no point banning cryptocurrencies

10 September 2017 21:00, UTC

The Finance Minister of the Russian Federation, Anton Siluanov, has stated that cryptocurrency ban is pointless. The statement was made on Friday on the Moscow Financial Forum, and the Minister made it clear that although his governmental body does not plan to ban digital currencies altogether, some regulations are planned to be introduced by the end of this year.

“There is no point in prohibiting them, it is necessary to regulate them,” Mr. Siluanov stressed, while also telling about how other countries regulate the market without harming it. The Minister also implied in his interview to the Russia 24 TV channel that there should be some procedures which will not allow unwise investors to lose their money after they unsuccessfully invest them into some bubble and concluded: “We must make an organized market out of the black market.” He also offered to make the cryptocurrency buying process similar to the purchase of the Russian Federal loan bonds.

Recently there has been many news on how the Russian government views cryptocurrencies, and while initially most officials viewed cryptocurrencies as just another fraud scheme, the majority opinion is now changing to positive. Bloomberg suggests that the current Russian President might have influenced them after he himself became familiar with the topic enough and endorsed the idea, even meeting with Vitalik Buterin, the founder of the number two cryptocurrency after Bitcoin.