Russia is planning to create rules for electronic currency transactions. The government of the Russian Federation and the country's central bank have already begun to work on development and implementation of this project. Many countries have very different ways of regulating the circulation of bitcoins. Operations with bitcoins are forbidden for the banking sector of China, but in California this currency is fully legalized. The central bank together with the Bank for International Settlements are monitoring the situation with cryptocurrencies. "We cannot ignore this instrument, maybe the future belongs to it," - First Deputy Chairman of the Bank of Russia Georgy Luntovsky said. At the same time, the official said there is a threat of using electronic currencies for settlements of weapons and drugs on the black market. The country's authorities have ordered to study carefully various regulatory schemes over cryptocurrencies and prepare a draft legislation for the Russian Federation. Earlier, the Bank of Russia made statements on the issue at the beginning of this year. Then the central bank officially warned Russian citizens against the use of bitcoins and emphasized that “according to the Russian law, the issue of "cash equivalents" is prohibited on the territory of Russia”. The regulator announced all transactions with cryptocurrencies would be defined as dubious operations. Similar claims were made by other regulators such as the central banks of France, India and Estonia, but none of them considered bitcoins outlawed. Russia's central bank was supported by China only, which also introduced restrictive measures against the cryptocurrency. The Chinese can use bitcoins at their own risk, but banks are obliged to abandon operations with electronic money. "Bitcoin is a decentralized electronic currency which is just the result of the cryptographic hash function”. The exchange rate of it often depends on an exchange it trades on.
