Stablecoin Move from Russia
After the tension between Russia and Ukraine, with many states imposing sanctions on Russia, Russia is looking for new ways to overcome the sanctions. The Ministry of Finance of Russia reported that it has started working with the governments of friendly countries to create a cross-border stablecoin-based payment platform. Russia’s Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseev said that additional arrangements will be introduced to put the platform into effect, which will likely take place between friendly countries, including China, Belarus and North Korea. Moiseev also made the following statements in his interview: “We are offering mutually acceptable tokenized tools to be used on these platforms, which are basically exchange platforms that we are currently developing with countries. Stable cryptocurrencies can be pegged to some generally recognized instruments. For example, gold, whose value is clear and appreciable to all parties involved.” According to the news of the Russian state news agency Tass, it has not been clearly explained with which countries Russia will use stablecoins for trade payments.
Why is Russia following such a path?
Now let’s come to why Russia followed such a path. President Vladimir Putin took a tough stance against digital currencies when he signed a law banning digital payments in July of this year and warned the Central Bank of Russia to ban all crypto activities in the country. However, Russia has been sanctioned by many countries since the beginning of its tension with Ukraine, and to overcome these sanctions, it discussed that it will choose stablecoin payments for cross-border transactions.
Palladium-Backed Stablecoin
There was another stablecoin project backed by the Russian government earlier this year. In this project, Russian government-backed tokenization platform Atomyze became the country’s first legal digital asset manager by registering with the Russian Central Bank in February this year. Later on, Atomyze launched its first palladium-backed digital asset with local bank Rosbank. The stablecoin that Russia plans to use in international payments is not yet clear.
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