Last year, digital financial assets (DFAs) totaling more than $26 million were issued in Russia. This new market has been developing since it was regulated in 2021 and the country’s monetary authority began granting licenses to issuers the following year.
Digital asset volume surges in Russia as investors seek alternatives to traditional instruments
Less than a year since Central Bank of Russia (CBR)-approved entities began issuing digital financial assets, they have issued DFAs worth 2 billion rubles (over $26 million). The data was announced by Ekaterina Frolovicheva, CEO of the Atomyze tokenization service.
Speaking at a roundtable in the Public Chamber ‘Digital Financial Assets: New Tool to Attract Liquidity’, Frolovicheva explained that the first issuer of DFA was added to the Bank of Russia register on February 3, 2022, but the issuance of DFA began Several months. later.
Quoted by the Tass news agency, she also noted that the unique features of DFAs make them extremely attractive and that demand is increasing. For example, hybrid digital rights combine the properties of digital financial assets and utility digital rights, simultaneously certifying a monetary claim and a right to demand the transfer of an asset.
Stablecoins, when they are not intended for settlements, as well as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) may be issued as hybrid digital rights in the Russian Federation. That is possible under the law “On Digital Financial Assets” that came into force in January 2021. However, the country has yet to regulate operations with decentralized cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.
Atomyze is one of the platforms authorized by the CBR to issue DFA, along with fintech company Lighthouse, as well as Sberbank and Alfa-Bank, Russia’s largest state-owned and private bank, respectively. Another entity was recently licensed: Distributed Registry Systems, which operates the ‘Masterchain’ blockchain platform.
Russians will soon be able to invest in DFA alongside other instruments, such as stocks and bonds, while avoiding the risks associated with traditional instruments and bypassing financial market intermediaries, said Maxim Trofimov, chief executive of a company called Digital Assets.
Do you expect the digital asset market to continue to expand in Russia? Share your thoughts on the subject in the comments section below.
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