Russian Trade Ministry ‘Develops Tool That Lets Crypto Miners Evade Sanctions’
Russia’s trade ministry says it has developed a tool that can help crypto miners evade Western sanctions.
In a DumaTV post on the RuTube video-sharing platform, lawmakers explained that the Ministry of Industry and Trade had “developed a tool for conducting industrial mining activities.”
The tool, they said would “help [Russian] businesses make cross-border payments.”
The video featured an interview with Anton Tkachev, the First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma’s Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies, and Communications.
The MP gave scant details about the new “tool,” but suggested that Russian firms, including miners, could soon seek to increase their use of crypto.
Tkachev claimed crypto could help Russian firms evade Western sanctions when trading abroad.
He explained that transactions made “in cryptocurrency” would “be more difficult for Western enemies to track.”
However, the MP hastened to add, “within Russia,” MPs still want to “prohibit” the “circulation of cryptocurrency.”
Tkachev said that “the future of cryptocurrency” would be “limited” and “conditional” in Russia.
The Committee’s First Deputy Chairman said that cryptoassets could be a “wonderful” payment tool “between different nations.”
He explained that the government had “no intention of letting [ordinary Russians] go to an electronics shop to buy a new TV and pay in crypto.”
But, the MP said, when “it comes to international payments, between nations,” Russian firms could look to expand their use of crypto in place of fiat.
The Russian government started trying to de-dollarize the trade sector prior to the war in Ukraine, with digital fiats and crypto suggested as alternatives to the USD.
Politicians have claimed that the digital ruble will have
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