MicroStrategy Bitcoin Holdings Hit 226,500 by July 2024

Earlier, Russian lawmakers passed a bill that would allow businesses to use crypto in international trade, as part of an effort to circumvent Western sanctions imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The law is expected to come into effect in September, and Russian central bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina, one of the new law’s backers, said the first transactions in cryptocurrencies would take place before the end of the year.

Russian parliamentarian Anatoly Aksakov said Russia had faced significant delays in international payments with major trading partners China, India and the United Arab Emirates after banks in those countries, under pressure from Western regulators, became more cautious.

“We made a historic decision in the financial sector,” Aksakov said, quoted from Yahoo Finance, Thursday (1/8/2024).

Under the new law, the central bank will create a new “experimental” infrastructure for cryptocurrency payments. Details of that infrastructure have not been announced.

The law is part of a package that also includes regulations on cryptocurrency mining and the circulation of other digital assets. The new law will not lift the ban on cryptocurrency payments that is in place in Russia.

The central bank said payment delays have become a major challenge for the Russian economy, leading to an 8% drop in Russian imports in the second quarter of 2024.

Despite Russia’s efforts to switch to the currencies of its trading partners and develop alternative payment systems within the BRICS group of emerging economies, many payments are still made in dollars and euros and through the international SWIFT system.