Russia Sets 2024 for Digital Ruble Rollout

Russia appears to be making progress regarding its digital Ruble plans, as evidenced in recent reports.

It has softened its legislation despite not being completely welcoming to all digital assets and digital asset mining.

In fact, the Bank of Russia continues working towards the upcoming adoption of the central bank digital currency (CBDC), planning an official digital ruble rollout in a few years.

The central bank expects to complete “real money” customer-to-customer transaction trials as well as the testing of customer-to-business and business-to-customer settlements.

In 2023, the Bank of Russia also intends to conduct beta testing of digital ruble-based smart contracts for trades by a limited circle of participants.

The bank explained that it expects to proceed with the CBDC rollout gradually, as it unlocks new different trials and features year by year. As soon as the Federal Treasury is ready, the digital ruble will also feature consumer-to-government, business-to-government, government-to-consumer and government-to-business payments.

In addition to that, the central bank expects to introduce the offline mode for the digital ruble by 2025, alongside integration of non-bank financial intermediaries, financial platforms and exchange infrastructure.

The Bank of Russia will also cooperate with other central banks developing their own digital currencies to carry out cross-border and foreign exchange operations with digital currencies, the authority added.

The transcontinental country has had good reasons to turn to digital assets, considering Western sanctions and the expected elections that are bound to happen in March 2024.

President Putin has already proposed the adoption of crypto regulation multiple times before the country actually adopted its crypto law “On Digital Financial Assets”. However, it did not have much of an impact, for it still lacks many regulatory aspects like crypto mining, taxation and others.

As mentioned previously on UNLOCK Blockchain, Russia has been diving into the blockchain and crypto space bit by bit; the country started its first digital ruble trials in February 2022, following its official CBDC roadmap released last year.

The Bank of Russia previously formed a group of twelve banks to test the digital ruble, including major banking giants like Sber, VTB, Tinkoff Bank and others.