The head of the Russian Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin believes that digital currency should be banned as it poses a threat to the state's monopoly on money issue and thus can lead to the loss of state's profits.

In an interview to RG, Bastrykin said that the competitive capacity of "surrogate money" is higher than that of the "legal money." The volume of "surrogate money" turnover in Russia now equals 1% of the country's GDP.

"If the turnover increases by 10%, digital currency will become a real threat to the state's financial stablilty," Bastrykin said, adding that the "uncontrolled increase in money supply provoked by the surrogate money will lead to the devaluation and gradual displacement of ruble from the money market."

Bastrykin also mentioned alleged anonymity of digital currencies, which, according to the Prosecutor General's office, makes it easy to use by outlaws, including those who buy oil and gas from the ISIS terrorist organization.

The Deputy Minister of Finance addressed the issue of bitcoin ban in Russia a day before. He said that the previous draft bill on the use of "money surrogates" would "hardly pass the first reading," adding that the Ministry had worked out its own version of the bill which would soon be submitted to the government.

Maria Rudina