The Central Bank of the Russian Federation, the country's main financial regulator, has published a report covering the risks associated with cryptocurrencies for investors and states. But while the report calls for a ban on mining, trading, or use of cryptocurrencies in the country, it appears that only trading and use will be banned. The Federal Security Service (FSB) pressured the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (CBR) to propose a ban on cryptocurrency payments within Russia for political reasons.
Decentralized cryptocurrencies have numerous advantages over regular currencies in that they are not easily traceable by governments, they are easy to use for cross-border payments, transactions are very fast, and sometimes they are good tools to hedge against inflation. But cryptocurrencies also have their downsides. They are extremely volatile fiat currencies that are not backed or convertible into commodities or assets and, due to their high volatility, are commonly used by fraudsters or criminals. Meanwhile, cryptocurrency mining consumes a lot of energy, which poses risks to stable power supply to regular customers and ultimately harms the environment, which is why Swedish experts called his government and the EU to ban Bitcoin and Ethereum mining.
