‘No Regulation Needed’ – Moscow Stock Exchange Plans to Trade Bitcoin Futures

[Cordillerabit]

The largest stock exchange in Russia, Moscow Exchange, has been building an infrastructure for the trading of cryptocurrencies. However, recently the central bank has reportedly “banned” the exchange from launching bitcoin futures until the country’s cryptocurrency regulatory framework has been implemented. News.Bitcoin.com reached out to Moscow Exchange to verify this report and to find out the exchange’s plans for cryptocurrency and bitcoin futures trading.

Central Bank Did Not ‘Ban’ Bitcoin Futures Trading

Moscow Exchange (Moex) is the largest exchange group in Russia. It operates trading markets in equities, bonds, derivatives, the foreign exchange market, money markets and precious metals.

Russian news agency Tass reported on Thursday that, according to their sources, “the central bank banned Moscow Stock Exchange from starting the trading of ‘No Regulation Needed’ - Moscow Stock Exchange Plans to Trade Bitcoin Futuresbitcoin futures.” The news outlet conveyed, “the Bank of Russia is ready to return to consider this issue only after the corresponding legislation appears in Russia.”

However, Andrey Braginskiy, Managing Director of Communications at the exchange, told news.Bitcoin.com on Friday that Tass’ article “is not entirely correct.” He elaborated, “we haven’t asked the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) for permission to list the new futures contract. Therefore, stating that they have denied the permission is not accurate.” He then revealed:

Generally, listing the new bitcoin index futures doesn’t require any new regulation. Of course, an agreement with an exchange that calculates the index is needed. But the Russian regulator needs to be in comfort.
Moscow Exchange first announced that it was building an infrastructure to support the trading of cryptocurrencies in August, particularly bitcoin and its derivatives. News.Bitcoin.com also subsequently reported the exchange saying, “from both regulatory and technical standpoints, potentially it could be faster and easier to start with trading in cryptocurrency derivatives.”

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