The new place accepts BTC, ETH and LTC. CoinFox has taken a chance to exchange our bitcoins to ether.

The second Moscow (and the third in Russia) cryptocurrency exchange office is located in a vibrant area in the capital city centre, near one of the main Moscow railway terminals. The room is bright and spacious, unlike its pillbox predecessor on New Arbat. There is even a nice waiting area – it may take time if you exchange between cryptocurrencies. The exchange commission is 3%.

The owner Oleg Belousov said he gets a lot of phone enquiries regarding the exchange of cryptocurrencies but there is not too may actual customers yet. It seems CoinFox reporter was the first ever to exchange bitcoin for ether. Still, Oleg is quite optimistic about the new service and plans to offer more options for cryptocurrency users, such as buying bitcoin with bank cards. His parallel project is Nexchange.ru, an online crypto exchange, which currently runs in test mode. The key feature of the project is the ability to exchange crypto coins online without the need to store them on the platform.

Oleg Belousov is the owner of UK-based software company ONIT Solutions LLC, however, his cryptocurrency business is specifically targeted at the Russian market. The main reason, according to him, is still relatively low competition, while the overall turnover of bitcoin in Russia is growing rapidly. In September it reached 250 mln rubles, which makes it impossible for the authorities to further ignore the potential of the market, therefore, they would hardly seek to ban cryptocurrency trade in the near future.

The first Russian bitcoin exchange office opened in Moscow in August this year. It operates 24/7 and looks very similar to a standard foreign currency exchange point, the only difference being that all operations are carried out digitally using mobile apps. So far, it only offers the bitcoin-to-ruble exchange with the daytime commission of 4%. Another similar exchange office has been recently opened in Ekaterinburg.

Lyudmila Brus