The Kremlin and the Russian government value the domestic cryptocurrency market at 16.5 trillion rubles ($214 billion), Bloomberg reports, citing sources. Previously, the Central Bank estimated the size of the market at $5 billion annually.
According to Bloomberg, the amount of cryptocurrency owned by Russian citizens was calculated by analyzing the IP addresses of the largest users of the crypto exchange and other information. This publication was told by two interlocutors who worked on the assessment with the government and the Kremlin, who asked not to be named.
Based on data from CoinMarketCap, the $214 billion figure given by sources is equivalent to 12% of the value of all digital financial assets in the world, Bloomberg notes. At the same time, it is rather difficult to give a relatively accurate assessment of the volume of the Russian cryptocurrency market due to the decentralized nature of investments. At the same time, the interlocutors of the publication admit that this estimate may be underestimated since many traders hide their activities.
A spokesman for Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko, who serves as the government’s curator of the digital economy, declined to provide the agency with an assessment of the market.
According to Singapore’s TripleA, more than 17 million people own cryptocurrencies, which is almost 12% of the Russian population.
In November 2021, the Central Bank stated that every year Russians make transactions with cryptocurrencies totaling 350 billion rubles ($5 billion). The regulator made this assessment based on the results of a survey of large Russian banks. In December, the head of the State Duma Committee on the financial market, Anatoly Aksakov, claimed that Russian citizens had invested 5 trillion rubles in cryptocurrency.
