Senior Russian official: Russia should develop stablecoins

According to BlockBeats, on April 17th, a senior Russian finance official stated on Wednesday that Russia should develop its own stablecoin pegged to other currencies after the digital wallet holding popular USDT stablecoins related to Russia was blocked last month. In the context of Western sanctions making international payments more difficult, Russian regulatory agencies have allowed experimental use of cryptocurrencies in international payments. Before the lockdown, USDT was very popular as a payment tool among Russian companies. The recent lockdown has led us to consider creating internal tools similar to USDT, which may be pegged to other currencies, "said Osman Kabalov, Deputy Director of the Financial Policy Department of the Ministry of Finance. Russian cryptocurrency trading platform Garantex announced on March 6th that Tether, the creator of USDT, has blocked digital wallets holding over 2.5 billion rubles (30.12 million US dollars) on its platform, forcing it to suspend operations after being sanctioned by the European Union for several days. Russian central bank governor Elvira Nabiurina opposes the use of cryptocurrencies in domestic payments, stating that as part of the experiment, Russian companies are actively testing international cryptocurrency payments.