Over the past few weeks there has been a great deal of chatter regarding Russia's central bank looking into adopting its own sovereign cryptocurrency sometime in the future. And while this topic had significant discussion during the recent St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), the reality is that the Eurasian power is much more intrigued in blockchain technology rather than in cryptocurrencies.
And even more specific... the Ethereum platform model, which according to a new report is being seriously looked at as a means to integrate Russia's oil and gas industry.
You’ve likely heard of Bitcoin as the future of money, but it is not the only cryptocurrency in the running for cashless economy dominance. The second largest among them is found on the Ethereum blockchain and is called Ether. One of the critical differences between Bitcoin and Ether is that while Bitcoin is first and foremost a currency, Ether, however, can be a platform for a variety of decentralized applications. In short, Ether can do much more than Bitcoin.
The adaptive quality of the platform may be part of the reason why Russia, under President Vladimir Putin, seem to be showing great interest in Ethereum. Reporting from Bloomberg reveals that Putin has been thinking about digital currency. “The digital economy isn’t a separate industry, it’s essentially the foundation for creating brand new business models,” he said at last week’s St. Petersburg Economic Forum.
Russia could be looking at Ethereum as a way to expand the country’s economic profile of fossil fuels with technology. Bloomberg’s Leonid Bershidsky suggests that Putin is “…under the impression that, to wean the country off its oil dependence, they needed a major leap in some specific area of technology that wasn’t yet dominated by Western, Chinese, or Japanese tech giants.”
