“Now there is no need to develop and issue a state cryptocurrency”

According to the Chairman of the Central Bank of Russia, Elvira Nabiullina, there is no need to develop and issue a state cryptocurrency now.

“We have studied and are studying this issue in detail and do not yet see the need to launch this tool,” she said, speaking at the Finopolis forum.

“It’s not just technical reasons. We cannot really appreciate the advantages of the state digital currency in comparison, for example, with existing electronic non-cash payments. But the risks, on the contrary, are significantly overstated, ”she added.

In the Russian Federation, cryptocurrencies and such instruments as ICOs, mining or smart contracts do not yet have a legal status. Last year, the State Duma introduced three bills that were aimed at filling this gap and creating a regulatory policy in the field of the digital economy. At the moment, only two of them have been adopted – changes to the Civil Code regarding digital rights and the law on raising funds using investment (crowdfunding) platforms.

In early October, Patrick Harker, president of the US Federal Reserve Bank in Philadelphia, said the national central banks would be forced to digitally convert their currencies, adding that not so many colleagues now support him.

And a few days earlier, the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, Sergei Shvetsov, said that he considered cryptocurrencies a “high-tech financial pyramid.”

Today, the head of the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market, Anatoly Aksakov, said that parliamentarians do not have time to pass a law on the regulation of cryptocurrencies in the country until November 1. Thus, it is postponed to the next year.