According to a recent government estimates report, it appears that Russian citizens own cryptocurrency that amounts to a total of 16.5 rubles ($214 billion). A report by Bloomberg states there that Russians own approximately 12% of the global crypto holdings overall. Two people from Kremlin said that they got to calculate this figure by analyzing the IP addresses of major crypto exchange users in the country, among other things.
This analysis aims to give the government a better overview of the crypto market, which will help them create new regulations. However, the proposals for this haven’t been finalized just yet. They expect that the figure still doesn’t show the full estimate, especially since Russia has yet to finalize its crypto regulations, leading many users to use tools that cover their identity.
However, this recent estimate is a massive jump from the data that Anatoly Aksakov, the head of the lower house of parliament’s financial markets committee, shared in December. According to that report, Russian citizens had crypto worth only 5 trillion rubles.
Over the past month, the finance ministry and the central bank submitted proposals and arguments back and forth. Initially, the central bank wanted to impose a blanket ban on crypto trading and mining. On the other hand, the finance ministry offered a counter-proposal to impose a crypto regulatory framework instead.
President Putin himself supported the finance ministry’s proposal, as he was also an advocate for having market regulations. With regards to Bitcoin network mining, Russia ranks third. Putin acknowledges that the country should use surplus energy for crypto mining purposes. Lmpwomg that the Russian president himself and the finance ministry both support crypto regulations, it’s possible that the government will soon regulate trading and mining.
