The Russian President Vladimir Putin has been making the headlines in the crypto-world this week, after he acknowledged that cryptocurrencies have value, but that it is still too-early to tell given their “unstable” nature.
In future, they might be accepted as a legitimate kind of payment, but it is still early days, cautioned the President.
The news made the rounds-early-yesterday, Thursday 14 October, after the CNBC interviewed President Putin and Kremlin posted this discussion on its website (in Russian).
Even though, crypto fans might begin to feel a rush of excitement, believing the Russian President defended digital currencies, it would be wise for them to hold-back as Putin’s choice of words on the topic was too cautious.
Putin says it is too early to discuss the topic but does not dismiss it
When asked by the CNBC, whether cryptocurrencies might be used rather of dollars for contracts to supply oil, Putin answered “Cryptocurrency contracts? It is too-early to talk about this because cryptocurrency can be a unit of account, but it’s too unstable.”
He continued “In order to transfer-funds from one place to other, yes, but to trade, let alone trade in energy resources, in my opinion, is still pre-mature. The cryptocurrency isn’t backed by anything yet. It exists, and as a means of calculation can be used, of course yes, but trading in oil, say or other primary materials & energy sources, still, it appears to me, it is too-early to talk about this yet.”
He ended on a greater positive note, “But, everything develops, everything has right to exist. We’ll see how it’ll go further, maybe someday it may even be a means of accumulation. We see this market-fluctuate. It is a bit early today.”
So even though, Russia remain appears to be open to discussing cryptocurrencies as a means of payment, we will just have to wait & see what happens down the line.
Given fluctuating behavior of crypto, some countries have been reluctant to jump all-in. Looking at the year alone, cryptocurrencies just like Bitcoin have dipped & gone back up in a space of some months. In February, Bitcoin went over $50K for the first time, only to drop below $32K in May, before jumping-back to over $60K, this month.
Countries, such as China cracked down on digital currencies, making all cryptocurrency transactions illegal as of last month.
Time will tell, where Russia truly-stands on that line, but for now, we will have to wait.
