Russia Is Keen To Create Own Cryptocurrency Like Japan, Sweden, and Venezuela

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As science moves forward, exponentially picking up speed, and the world is starting to reveal at the advances in technology that radically change the way we live and think, even the most traditional countries start to awaken to the concept of technological innovations.

Some countries implement blockchain to try to create a real democracy, not one in which the majority is told what to do by the minority, but one in which thanks to blockchain every member takes part in the decision-making process.

Others, like China, seem to have found a way to police its 1.3 Billion citizens. With features like punishing people for having dodgy friends on Facebook and their posts or risky political statements, the system will “allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step”. Russia, as usual, makes the headlines, combining the most, shall we say, interesting features of the East and The West.

What actually happened

German Gref, the head of Russia’s single largest bank, Sberbank, addressed Putin recently, calling for “regulation” and not “prohibition” of the blockchain technology. Due to global emergence of the new technology, Gref stated there will be a greater need for experts in the field of cytotechnology so that the regulations can be put into effect that would make the market more seethrough, safe and generally dependable.

Putin returned the ball, stating that Russia has a complete set of all the resources it needs, including the intellectual base, and getting into the new technology which was produced by other countries will mean their terms being dictated to Russia, which is not something he or Russia were ready for.

Those who are getting closely involved with blockchain, Putin said, “will very quickly fall under the dependence of the leaders of this development…Russia cannot allow this in any case:” The Russian government is enthusiastic about developing its own cryptocurrencies like Japan, Venezuela (who are also very quick to pick up the pace), Sweden, Estonia, China, and others. This will presumably help avoid the risk of being influenced by other countries’ policymaking being enforced on top the country’s own agenda.

Olga Skorobogatova, the head of the Central Bank of Russia, said on the subject:

“Regulators of all countries agree that it’s time to develop national cryptocurrencies, this is the future. Every country will decide on specific time frames. After our pilot projects, we will understand what system we could use in our case for our national currency.”

Why we think this happened

We will remind you that Japan is set on introducing its own coin in March 2018. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc, which is Japan’s largest bank, has entered a consortium with other major banks with an agenda of introducing cryptocurrencies to Japan on an everyday basis so that they can be interchangeable with regular currencies and means of payment.

What is the thinking behind this move? This, we are tempted to say, is where the plot thickens, but in this case, we think, it is more like it hard-forks.

We can only surmise about the possible objectives of this kind of strategy (geopolitics are famously complex), but there is something to be said about not giving in to a total monopoly, which will mean entering the arena on conditions that one may not be able to choose.

Creating a hard fork, essentially, in this case, by introducing a version of the crypto technology that would able to compete with other versions, would allow developing much more power of presence.

Image courtesy of AltCoinToday.