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President of Russia Vladimir Putin says that it is possible to use bitcoins for some operations.

Putin discussed bitcoin with the participants of the Klyazma Youth Forum, says Kremlin.

“This money has no real basis and it does not depend on any real entity. In general you can use these ‘coins’, they are spreading more and more. You can use them as the equivalent [of money] in certain segments of economy. This is possible,” said president of Russia.

Putin noted that he discussed the digital currency with the head of the Russian Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina. “People in Central Bank have a very professional position [on bitcoin]. We do not reject it. Yet there are serious and real problems with the acceptance [of this currency].”

Press-secretary of Vladimir Putin Dimitry Peskov later noted that Vladimir Putin did not speak in support of bitcoin.

“It was not specifically about Bitcoin, they talked about some form of conditional payments,” said the press-secretary of the head of state, “It is clear from the context of his speech."

This spring, the Central Bank of Russia, originally very critical of cryptocurrencies, became much more favourable towards them.An unnamed official connected to the Central Bank informed the Izvestia newspaper that the regulator might start to regulate some of the bitcoin transactions such as remittances or payments to private accounts. Allegedly, the Central Bank was going to meet the financial markets representatives to discuss the question of bitcoin and cryptocurrency use in Russia.

Later in April, the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina spoke favourably of bitcoin. Experts suggested that a government-run bitcoin exchange could be created to monopolise the ruble/bitcoin conversion.