The international crackdown on blockchain assets by central banks, which started with the Chinese ban on Bitcoin exchanges and continued with the Korean ban on ICOs and margin trading, has now reached Russia.

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According to the Bank of Russia’s First Deputy Governor Sergei Shvetsov, cryptocurrency exchanges will not only be banned but their websites will be blocked so that Russian citizens will not be able to access them at all (unless they have the technical knowhow to bypass the government’s firewall).

“We cannot stand apart. We cannot give direct and easy access to such dubious instruments for retail investors,” Shvetsov said. “We think that for our citizens, for businesses the usage of such cryptocurrencies as an investment object carries unreasonably high risks.”

Speaking at a financial derivatives event today in Moscow he added: “We see all derivatives on crypto as negative phenomena for our market. Not only can’t we support it, we will make every effort to limit for the regulated sector the option to operate with such types of instruments.

In parallel, we are working together with the attorney general to block foreign sites which allow our citizens to purchase instruments of this kind.

We recognize that Bitcoin is turning into an asset which is bought in hopes of fast returns, and therefore it has characteristics of a financial pyramid scheme.”