When Russia talks more sense about an economic issue than famed business elite-influencers who boast millions of followers, those followers should be worried. The authoritarian Communist nation that's massing its armies on the Ukraine's borders just issued an insightful assessment of the craze in cryptocurrencies, all negative. Amazingly, you'll learn more listening to the Bank of the Russia than such celebrated crypto-bulls as Tesla's Elon Musk, Block's Jack Dorsey, and MicroStrategy's Michael Saylor. You might want to pay special attention since Bitcoin's dive below $35,000 is casting doubts that its the global currency of the future (Dorsey) or a fabulous store of value (Musk and Wood).
The Bank of Russia bashes crypto
On January 20, as Bitcoin hovered around $43,000, Russia's equivalent of the U.S. Fed issued a "Consultation Paper" advocating that the government ban all cryptocurrency production, trading, and investing by its citizens and banks within its borders. Russia is the latest entry in a long line of nations seeking to boot or limit crypto mining, or restrict or abolish transactions in digital currencies from Bitcoin to Ether to Cardano. The list encompasses China, the former top hub for mining, as well as most of the nations where the big Chinese producers sought to relocate: Iran, Kazakhstan, Iceland, India, Sweden (where top officials favor a stoppage), and Georgia, which announced it was weighing an outright prohibition on Bitcoin mining days before Russia's bombshell.
Fortune
