The cryptocurrency situation in Russia has taken yet another turn few people saw coming. With rumors regarding a CryptoRuble surfacing earlier this week, there is a lot of excitement in the marketplace right now. However, it seems the city of Moscow may very well get its own digital currency, known as Moscowcoin. There doesn’t appear to be a lot of communication between government branches regarding these different plans, though.
Moscowcoin is a Potential Digital Currency
It is evident a lot of countries around the world are looking to issue their own central bank digital currencies right now. While it remains to be seen which one will be the first to do so, Russia is certainly in an interesting position right now. Earlier this week, we saw various reports regarding Vladimir Putin’s “approving” the creation of CryptoRuble. Whether or not this currency will actually be created in the coming months remains a mystery, though.
As one has come to expect from Russian government officials these days, there is no united front on the matter. To put things into perspective, it seems CryptoRuble may not necessarily become Russia’s only digital currency in the future. There has been speculation regarding the Russian capital getting its own digital currency, which aptly goes by the name Moscowcoin. This is still an unconfirmed rumor at this point, but the idea certainly opens up a lot of interesting possibilities.
Vladimir Efimov, the head of Moscow’s Department of Economic Development and Policy, confirmed Moscowcoin is indeed a very real project. Issuing citywide digital currencies will raise a lot more questions than answers at this stage, though. The introduction of two new national currencies – one for use in the capital, the other for the rest of the country – would make no sense whatsoever with traditional money, let alone digital currencies.
Do keep in mind this concept is still in the discussion stage and development of the infrastructure has not begun just yet. After all, a currency specifically for Moscow would bring a lot of new problems, including converting existing infrastructure and ensuring consumers trust this new form of money. Both of these challenges would be pretty difficult to pull off, as most consumers are wary of new currencies in general, regardless of who or what issues them in the first place.
Furthermore, it remains to be seen what one would use Moscowcoin for exactly. It sounds great to make money even more digital than it is right now, but if it can’t be spent, there is no purpose for it in the first place. Resident-oriented web portals and services are being discussed as the primary use cases for this new currency. Metropolitan services may also create new use cases for Moscowcoin. All of this is assuming the concept actually gets approved and development of infrastructure for this new currency begins.
Rest assured this is not the last we will hear about Russian digital currencies now or in the future. The CryptoRuble is setting off a chain reaction of similar projects. Whether or not Moscowcoin and CryptoRuble would be tradable against one another remains another big question which can’t be answered right now. It will be interesting to see how these plans evolve in the coming weeks and months, to say the very least.
