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Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska (Deripaska has been under US sanctions since 2018) said that El Savador has taken a simple path in recognising bitcoin as a means of payment. The businessman wondered when the Bank of Russia would create a financial instrument that ensures independence in foreign trade settlements.
El Salvador has become the first country in the world to legalise bitcoin as an official means of payment. El Salvador's parliament passed the relevant decision on 9 June.
The cryptocurrency will be legal tender on a par with the US dollar.
Prices in El Salvador can be set in bitcoin, and it will also be possible to pay taxes in the cryptocurrency.
"When will the development of financial technology penetrate this wall of superstition of our Central Bank? When will we get a proper financial instrument that ensures independence in foreign trade settlements, instead of press releases about the 'development of the digital rouble'?" the businessman wrote on his Telegram channel. He concluded that there was no answer to this question because the Bank of Russia "prefers to tighten the screws and discuss allowing teenagers to trade on the stock market."
In early June, Deripaska suggested that US President Joe Biden's administration may soon move to strangle the crypto market. According to the businessman, US regulators have decided to take control of the cryptocurrency industry because the $1.5 trillion market was slipping away from them.
Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska
Member of the RSPP Management Board, Chairman of the Committee on Ecology and Environment Management, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Basic Element Ltd.