Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed tolerance of cryptocurrencies in an interview to CNBC. Russian miners have notched up a significant share in the global crypto market. So, Moscow’s rhetoric matters a lot for a further trend of digital assets.

In the CNBC interview on occasion of the Russian Energy Week International Forum 2021, the Russian leader also cleared up his viewpoint on the crypto. “Cryptocurrency may be a unit of contact. To transfer money to some other place maybe, but it’s too early to talk about the trade of anything in sources of crypto,” the President said. He cautioned that it makes no sense to use cryptocurrency to trade energy commodities, in particular to settle oil contracts, for the simple reason that it is extremely volatile.  

“Cryptocurrency is not backed by anything yet,” Putin pinpointed the major problem of virtual money. “It has the right to exist and may be used as a means of payment, but it’s too early to talk about this. It is very unstable,” Vladimir Putin said. “I think it’s too early to talk about the oil trade in cryptocurrency and the trade in other primary energy sources,” the President expanded on the prospects of digital assets in Russia. 

“Everything develops and has the right to exist - it may have the right to accumulate, we’ll see,” he summed up. The interview exposed that the Kremlin has no intention to crack down on the crypto industry.