The digital ruble is a new generation of conventional national currency that will exist in digital form. In general, the prospects of launching this currency were discussed back in early 2019, and then the chairman of the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market, Anatoly Aksakov, predicted the launch of the digital ruble within 2-3 years.


At the end of 2020, Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina said that testing would start later – it was allegedly possible in late 2021. As a result, the situation with the new product remains uncertain, but for some reason it is already predicted to replace Bitcoin and Efirium.

What’s happening with the digital ruble

The billionaire believes that digital payments and services are the key to dominating innovation on a national scale. Here’s one of his quotes on the subject, in which the entrepreneur shares his perspective on what’s happening. The replica was published by the news publication CryptoPotato.

Metal coins have been replaced by paper money and then transactions have become cashless. Digital financial assets are just the next stage.

That is, Potanin believes that crypto will be a logical step in the development of the money sphere, as assets in digital form are more in line with current realities. In addition, coins seem more promising because of the lack of connection between them and banks. At the same time, Bitcoin has a limited maximum supply and a fixed inflation rate, which is extremely relevant in today's environment.

Billionaire Vladimir Potanin

However, he also believes that digitalisation should not focus on “original” cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Etherium. In his view, these are risky, “unreliable products” that regulators cannot keep track of. Thus, central bank digital currency or other tokens from the authorities are monetary solutions that can stimulate the Russian economy.

Potanin is an investor in Atomyze, a tokenisation start-up based in Switzerland. The platform uses blockchain to turn real assets like metal and real estate into tokens that can be easily exchanged. Earlier this month, the company’s Russian unit received a licence for its operations. Here’s a quote from Vladimir, cited by Bloomberg.

Unlike some cryptocurrencies, tplatforms like Atomyze offer consumers high-quality and secure digital goods and can drive unreliable products out of the market.

We believe that such a claim is far from reality. After all, Bitcoin and Etherium have been around for a long time, and are truly decentralised. Obviously, the world will not turn its back on these products simply because of some startup's ability to tokenize different items. They have at least a different purpose.

Will the ruble “digitally” become a real threat to Bitcoin?

Most interestingly, Potanin’s point of view may well coincide with the Central Bank’s initiatives. Recall, earlier representatives of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation said that there is a high probability of a complete ban on cryptocurrencies in Russia. However, as it became clear later after the statements of representatives of the Ministry of Finance and President Vladimir Putin, not all representatives of the authorities support the prohibition of interaction with digital assets on the territory of the country.

In addition, as Putin noted, Russia has certain advantages for cryptocurrency mining. Read more about his remarks in a separate article.


We believe that the prospects of replacing the central bank's digital currency with full-fledged Bitcoin-type coins are very slim. Certainly, in the event of a digital ruble launch and a ban on interaction with conventional crypto, the former may indeed become popular. However, these product categories will differ in the degree of centralization, which in the ruble's situation will be maximum. That means investors will have an excuse to link up with other coins to reduce their dependence on government decisions and the geopolitical situation in general. At least this tactic has worked well in the past.


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