A senior Russian senator said on Monday that after establishing a digital rouble early next year, Russia intends to utilize the currency in mutual settlements with China as it strives to diminish Washington’s global financial hegemony.
Russia, like many other nations, has been adopting virtual currency in recent years in order to modernize its financial system, speed up payments, and counter the prospect of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin gaining power.
The Russian Central Bank is already conducting digital rouble testing with banks – despite the fact that sanctions imposed on Moscow for its activities in Ukraine have limited Russia’s access to large portions of the global financial market infrastructure
With this in mind, Russia is looking for alternate ways to conduct transactions – according to Anatoly Aksakov, head of Russia’s lower house of parliament’s finance committee, in an interview with Russia’s legislative newspaper.
Aksakov states that “digital rouble and cryptocurrencies” are topics that are intensifying in modern society. The head of Russia’s lower house parliament finance committee also believes that – because money flows can escape networks controlled by hostile governments, digital currency adoption is critical.
Russia’s Cryptocurrency Adoption
The central bank and the administration have been at odds over cryptocurrency regulation for the whole year. Aksakov expressed optimism that legislation will be introduced this year.
“If we launch this, then other countries will begin to actively use it going forward, and America’s control over the global financial system will effectively end,” Aksakov said.
As Western nations have spurned Russia, Moscow’s alliance with Beijing has grown increasingly crucial. The two countries’ commerce has risen, and Russian enterprises have begun issuing debt in yuan.
Some central bank experts have also indicated that new technologies would allow nations to engage more directly with one another, reducing their reliance on Western-dominated payment channels such as the SWIFT system, to which many Russian banks have lost access owing to sanctions.
