#CIS

One of Ukraine’s biggest banks, PrivatBank, announced finalization of testing period for a service providing merchants with an option of accepting bitcoins for their goods. The service is quite usual for the crypto-space, as it transacts hryvnias (Ukrainaian national currency) to the merchant’s account in case of local acquiring, or Euros in case of international […]

The Supreme Court of Estonia has made a request addressed to local central bank, two government departments, the Bank of Estonia, and the country’s financial regulator, to clarify their views on legal stance of digital currencies in regard to AML policies and general essence of cryptocurrency and the underpinning technology thereof.

Bitcoin and blockchain have recently become the most discussed issue in Ukrainan fintech sector. As government institutions gradually become loyal to cryptotechnologies, local community becomes more active, and more and more merchants at least consider accepting bitcoin, even if they have not started accepting it yet.

Regardless of Russian authorities’ cryptocurrency stand-off and generally slow Bitcoin integration in all countries of former USSR, many local companies carry on operating and developing in the industry. Thus, Bitcoin is now available for exchanging in 130 countries around the globe including former Soviet republics via popular instant money transfer services.

Special: Read in Russian From March 31st to April 11th ForkLog in association with Pirate Party of Russia and Roskomsvoboda (Russian Committee for Freedom) has been holding a survey ‘Bitcoin in Russia and CIS countries’. We have prepared a detailed report on the findings which came as a surprise even to the ForkLog editorial board.