The future is here: Russia’s central bank releases national digital currency research plan

The Russian Central Bank is conducting a large number of digital currency experiments with the aim of developing a national digital currency.

While attending the 2017 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Olga Skorobogatova, deputy chairwoman of the Russian Central Bank, revealed the bombshell news that the regulatory agency is developing a national digital currency.

Skorobogatova reportedly believes that national cryptocurrencies are the future, saying it is only a matter of time before all countries in the world accept and use national digital currencies.

She said:

Regulators around the world agree that now is the right time to develop a national cryptocurrency. This is the future. Each country will determine the exact time. Once our pilot projects are completed, we will know which systems are suitable for running national currencies.

Hybrid blockchain?

Skorobogatova first publicly commented on national digital currencies in April 2016. She believes that a “hybrid network” that mixes public and private blockchain protocols can create a unified distributed ledger that can eventually be used to issue national digital currencies.

Although there are few details about the digital currency project, it is worth noting that the Russian Central Bank completed the development and testing of an Ethereum interbank blockchain prototype in 2016. The blockchain prototype is called "MasterChain" and the companies involved in this financial information project are all large Russian banks. It is speculated that this project is a financial information transmission platform similar to SWIFT operated by the central bank.

Skorobogatova proposed and established the central bank's blockchain working group in February 2016 to study the application of this decentralized technology, and "MasterChain" is their final result.

Legalizing Bitcoin

Herman Gref, CEO of Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, also spoke at the same conference, calling for the legalization of cryptocurrencies as soon as possible. The bank executive has previously criticized the Russian Finance Ministry’s Bitcoin ban.

Gref himself is a bitcoiner and has publicly stated that he is a bitcoin investor.