Russia moves to accept Bitcoin and crypto for international payments

A new report from Reuters has revealed that Russia is open to accepting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for international payments.

Since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, which resulted in contracting heavy sanctions from numerous countries that condemned the Russian Federations' actions, the Russian economy has been crippled, and officials are looking at alternative ways of keeping it afloat. There have been rumors of Russia accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment, but now we are hearing from the First Deputy Governor of The Central Bank of the Russian Federation, Ksenia Yudaeva, who said Russia's bank is open to implementing digital currencies.

"In principle, we do not object to the use of cryptocurrency in international transactions," said Yudaeva. Notably, that open-mindedness from Russian bank officials only stretches so far as Yudaeva and other banking officials still believe that adopting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies comes with considerable risk to Russia's financial infrastructure that may negatively impact Russian citizens.

Read more: Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will soon become legal in Russia

"We still believe that the active use of cryptocurrency within the country, especially within Russia's financial infrastructure, creates great risks for citizens and users. We believe that in our country those risks could be reasonably large," said Yudaeva.

It should be noted that Russian regulators have been discussing for many months now how Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can make it onto the banks' books. Still, it seems that the talks haven't yet yielded any kind of conclusive regulatory plan for implementation.