Russia Emerges as China’s Biggest Competitor in the Bitcoin Race

Russia Emerges as China’s Biggest Competitor in the Bitcoin Race. For the last couple of years, China has become the leader when it comes to the bitcoin use or as some have called it mining. However, recently, there has been another serious player in the Bitcoin game and that player is Russia. To the surprise of many experts, Russia has emerged as one of the leading countries when it comes to the use of cryptocurrencies. Russians are not only using bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies but they have also created their own digital wallet for those cryptocurrencies which implies the level of seriousness when it comes to the rise of cryptocurrencies in Russia.

The Debate Over Bitcoin

Russia was not always open for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. While the rest of the world took on the new digital currencies, Russians were still avoiding any move into this market for quite a while. Not that long ago, there was a big debate in Russia about whether to ban all cryptocurrencies in the country all together or to allow them being used. Some were even suggesting harsh punishments for those who use any cryptocurrencies.

However, things are changing in Russia about this issue because Bank of Russia has recently established an expert group in order to evaluate the advancement in technology when it comes to cryptocurrencies and the financial market in general. Bank of Russia published a statement in which they announced that they would be taking a look at the safety of new technological developments in the financial markets including mobile payments, and other aspects.

Later the same year, Bank of Russia also said that they would be testing the blockchain technology that is based on the Ethereum which they called Masterchain. Since then, the testing phase has become much more than just a testing phase as it turned into an alliance between Russian banks.

The Development of Cryptocurrencies in 2017

In July 2017, Russian president himself said that digital economy is a very important aspect of the world’s financial industry. This statement started the rumors about Russia developing their own cryptocurrency and these rumors were confirmed not that long after that when it was revealed that one of the Putin’s biggest allies was creating a Bitcoin mining business that is worth over $100 million.

The man behind this business is Dmitry Marichiev who is currently launching ICO or Initial Coin Offering in order to obtain enough Bitcoin and Ethereum in order to finance his cryptocurrency business.

China’s Share in the Market

When it comes to the world of cryptocurrencies, China is the leader in that field with a 60 percent share in the global market. It would be hard for Russia to catch up with China in that aspect but with big announcements coming from Russia, they will surely have a capacity to do that. Marichiev is not only planning to venture into blockchain projects but he also wants to create a blockchain platform which in his words would function as the verification before the actual ICO.

The past few months have become very important for the future of cryptocurrencies in Russia because government is creating regulations for this field and more and more people in Russia are accepting blockchain technologies as well as different types of cryptocurrencies. Besides that, Russians have also announced that they have developed a protection against ‘quantum hacking’ which is something that hardly any country in the world has been able to do.

In the last year and a half, Russia has made huge advances in the field of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies and those advances have put Russia in a very good position in the digital economy market. Some experts are even saying that these advances in these fields might bring the same benefits for Russia as the invention of Internet did for the Western countries.