Russian cbank to consider gold-backed cryptocurrency

Russia's central bank, the Bank of Russia, will consider issuing a gold-backed cryptocurrency, Russian news agency TASS reports May 23.

Elvira Nabiullina, the head of the Bank of Russia, revealed that the bank may be interested in creating a gold-pegged crypto for conducting mutual settlements with global jurisdictions.

However, Nabiullina claimed that she believes that it is more important to develop international settlements using national currencies. Speaking at a meeting of the State Duma, the bank's governor cited a successful example of using national currencies in settlements under the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), noting that the development demonstrated good dynamics.

Nabiullina also noted that Russia's central bank has not changed its stance towards the adoption of cryptocurrencies in the Russian monetary system, claiming that the bank is against a scenario wherein cryptos become a substitute to fiat money.

In April 2019, the Bank of Russia released a policy brief on the potential benefits and disadvantages of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). According to the bank, CBDCs could be a less risky and more liquid type of asset that can potentially reduce transaction costs in the economy. On the other hand, the bank outlined CBDCs' lack of anonymity as the only one potential disadvantage as compared with cash.

Following the Bank of Russia, an adviser to the President of Russia had previously suggested that launching a CBDC in Crimea could help the region to attract more investors and avoid sanctions.

Recently, Cointelegraph reported that Venezuela and Russia are discussing an opportunity to close mutual trade settlements using Russian ruble (RUB) and the Venezuelan stateowned petro (PTR) cryptocurrency. Capital markets platform iSTOX has joined Singapore's regulatory sandbox to launch digitized securities trading in late 2019, the firm announced in a tweet on May 24.

Following its addition to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)'s FinTech Regulatory Sandbox on May 1, the Singapore-based company will start providing service for the trading of digitized securities starting from Q4 2019, according to an iSTOX official press release.

Operated by ICHX Tech, a blockchain infrastructure firm incubated by major Singapore investment firm ICH Group, iSTOX expects to graduate from the sandbox and be fully operational by early 2020, the press release notes. The firm claims to be the first "fully-regulated platform in a major global financial center to offer issuance, settlement, custody and secondary trading of digitized securities."

The MAS represents both Singapore's central bank and financial regulator. The authority launched its FinTech Regulatory Sandbox in order to enable local projects to develop new financial products and services in a secure and efficient ecosystem. In late 2018, the MAS expanded its regulatory framework for payment operators to bring selected cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH) under its jurisdiction. The bank has submitted a new bill that is expected to replace two existing pieces of its legislation related to payments and remittances.

Recently, MAS' CFO Sopnendu Mohanty has recognized the potential of blockchain to improve the efficiency of cross-border payments after the bank successfully carried out its first blockchain cross-border transaction in digital currency in cooperation with the Bank of Canada.