Russia's "Qiwi" promotes controversial project "BitRuble"

As major banks around the world are increasingly testing blockchain technology, Russia's domestic payment service startup Qiwi has been met with a cold reception.

Qiwi announced the release of its proprietary digital currency "BitRuble" in September last year. At that time, the overall atmosphere of blockchain technology in Russia was not good, so this news attracted a lot of attention. In the previous year, the Russian legislature had also been committed to exploring laws and regulations to ban Bitcoin.

Still, Qiwi said in an interview that the company is continuing with the project, and that domestic discussions about the technology are becoming more nuanced.

Although Russian government officials and institutions initially resisted blockchain with all their might, some even calling it “technological hooliganism,” Qiwi believes that now is the opportunity to explain the benefits of blockchain technology.

Qiwi communications director Konstantin Koltsov told the publication that he believes the conversation about blockchain is becoming more constructive, but that uncertainties remain, such as BitRuble:

This project is beneficial to our market, but there are still some misunderstandings around the technology and regulatory issues.

While regulators work to understand the technology, progress has been slow.

So far, Qiwi has submitted its initiative to the Central Bank, the State Duma and the Ural Forum on Information Technologies and Communications.

Three questions

Regarding the progress of the talks, Konstantin Koltsov said he identified three main disputes.

For example, participants are looking for ways to better identify blockchain users, a question that reflects the ongoing debate over bitcoin’s anonymity or pseudonymity and the interest of global banks in blockchain analytics firms.

Qiwi's mission is to help more domestic institutions become familiar with blockchain technology.

“We know there are more than one beneficiary of blockchain or digital currency and are preparing to bring the technology to the entire market.”

Konstantin Koltsov suggested that Qiwi should be open to project discussions and share data results with companies that can help the company develop financial or non-financial products.