Russia Not Ready To Accept Bitcoin As Legal Tender, Kremlin Says

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As El Salvador officially accepts Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender on Tuesday, September 7, the Russian government reiterated its negative stance on a scenario where BTC could be accepted as official currency.

Dmitry Peskov, the official representative of Russian President Vladimir Putin, claimed that Russia had no reason to recognize Bitcoin as legal tender, local news agency RIA Novosti reported on Tuesday.

The Kremlin representative argued that aligning cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin with traditional monetary instruments would only bring harm to the country’s financial and economic system.

Clearly, Russia is not ready for such measures, Peskov reportedly said.

Peskov’s latest remarks are in line with the Russian government’s long-held skeptical approach to Bitcoin, echoing a similar statement by Anatoly Aksakov, State Duma member and key architect of the ban Russian cryptocurrency payments. Last August, Aksakov argued that accepting cryptocurrency as a means of payment would essentially mean the destruction of a financial system.

Related: Survey Finds 77% of Russian Investors Prefer Bitcoin to Gold and Forex

Russia officially banned cryptocurrency payments in the country under the country’s main cryptocurrency law, on digital financial assets, in January 2021. The law does not prohibit Russians from buying or to trade cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. In May 2021, some Russian lawmakers reportedly considered a partial reversal of the crypto payments ban, considering changes to allow crypto payments as a contractual medium.

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