RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Russia plans to introduce a prototype digital ruble issued by the central bank by January 2022, and freely tradable, non-controllable cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and others are therefore undesirable. They prevent total financial control of citizens desired by the state.
However, the Russian regulator presents the situation differently. It claims that the increasing number of crypto transactions represents a risk to the country’s financial stability.
Digital assets have legal status in Russia, but cannot be used as a means of payment, as the government believes they could be used in money laundering or to finance terrorism.
According to Reuters, the central bank is now discussing a possible ban with market players and experts. If approved, the measure could apply to new crypto asset purchases, but not to existing wallets.
Reportedly, the current position of the Central Bank of Russia is a “total rejection ” of all cryptocurrencies.
According to the central bank, the annual volume of transactions in cryptocurrencies made by Russian citizens amounts to US$5 billion. In a financial stability review published last month, the regulator said that Russians were among the world’s most active participants in the cryptocurrency market.
In comparison, in Brazil, crypto transactions account for around US$9 billion, in Venezuela US$3.2 billion, and in Argentina US$3.1 billion.
Latin Americans are using bitcoin to protect against hyperinflation and during crises because it guarantees them stability (the contrary of what the Russians claim).
Countries like Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Chile, and Venezuela have been struggling for decades with hyperinflation – a situation when the national currency depreciates by tens or hundreds of percent per year. For example, last year inflation in Argentina
ELIMINATE COMPETITION FOR THE STATE TO HAVE TOTAL CONTROL
While planning to ban “free” cryptocurrencies, the Russian Federation authorities are about to begin testing a prototype of their own crypto, a digital ruble issued by the Central Bank in January 2022.
The prototype digital ruble platform is expected to be ready in December 2021. The attempt to launch the digital currency will be carried out in several stages, expanding the list of operations and increasing the number of participants in the project, which currently involves up to 12 financial institutions.
At least eight federal laws and five codes are amended: civil, tax, budgetary, criminal, and administrative.
According to Aksakov, holders of fiat money and digital rubles will have the same rights, at least at the beginning.
He said the new currency would serve as a means of payment, appreciation, and savings, just like regular money, adding that a “seamless” payment space and “easy convertibility of the ruble from one form to another” will be ensured.
Alexei Minayev, deputy director of the Department for the Development of the Digital Economy of the Russian Ministry of Economic Development, said a trend to introduce digital forms of national currencies in the world, stressing that this initiative has practically nothing to do with cryptocurrencies.
This statement must be taken with a grain of salt. Cryptocurrencies give people a way out of total control since they are not issued by Central Banks. And they serve as a means of payment around the world. Something that can hardly be said of the digital ruble.
That is why they have to be banned, as China did and Russia is planning to do and other states will soon enough be trying to do as well.
Digital central bank money and the subsequent successive, complete abolition of cash and banks in their previous form and the introduction of digital central bank money lead to the ultimate goal which is that each citizen will have only one account, through which all transactions will take place, and this account will no longer be with a commercial bank but with the central bank.
The background to this plan is logical. Digital central bank money is programmable. It would allow the state to monitor all transactions, assign different tax rates, and impose individual penalties on their citizen.
The state could partially tie the money to an expiration date and could force us to spend certain specific sums within certain time periods. It could also earmark the money and force us to spend certain amounts only on certain goods or in certain regions.
Above all, however, the state would be able to cut off each and everyone from all payment flows with a simple click of the mouse, thus eliminating us financially. Digital central bank money would be the most effective social control mechanism that has existed in human history.
It would thus be nothing more and nothing less than the completion of an all-encompassing dictatorship brought about via money.