What does the Russian Ministry of Finance want from Bitcoin? It is a tricky answer but goes something like this. The Russian Ministry of Finance wants to have the chicken, without the egg. But we all know there is no chicken without the egg and vice versa.
Russia has made up its mind to ban bitcoin and put anyone who doesn’t comply behind bars. Putting bitcoin users and miners behind bars doesn’t seem to be enough for the country as it wants them to even pay for their stay in jail. According to Russian media, the Ministry of Finance has made amendments to the central banking law to impose tough penalties on those who are involved in mining and transmitting digital currency.
The new amendment to the Code of Administrative Offences calls for a fine of anywhere between 3 million to 5 million rubles along with an administrative suspension of activity for about 3 months. This new amendment is targeted towards bitcoin miners and businesses making bitcoin transactions. This new amendment comes as an addition to the previous draft which made exchanging bitcoin for ruble illegal.
The new law makes any alternative digital currency other than ruble illegal. The government, however, is willing to look into similar technology to create a state-sanctioned digital currency – may be bitruble or whatever they would like to call it. President Vladimir Putin himself once told that Russia is open to looking into technology similar to that of bitcoin to improve the country’s current monetary system.
The government seems to have made up its mind to burn bitcoin at the stake and it is pulling all possible strings to achieve it. Maybe the government believes in the conspiracy theory that states bitcoin as a product of CIA to destabilize economies.
What will be the final outcome, will Russia succeed in killing bitcoin on its soil is something that only time will tell.