Central Bank of Russia Licenses the Nation’s First Digital Assets Manager

The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) has issued a license to Atomize LLC, the country’s first recognized digital assets manager. As the apex bank announced, the approval of the company is based on the fact that it met the requirements to operate Digital Financial Services (DFA) in the country based on the technical capabilities of its information system which complies with all relevant laws.

“The Bank of Russia has included the first organization, Atomize LLC, in the register of information system operators that issue digital financial assets (DFA). The regulator recognized the rules of the company’s information system and the technical implementation of the platform as compliant with the law,” the CBR announcement reads.

Atomize prides itself as a Russian-based blockchain platform which is backed by Interros, a Russian corporate investment firm co-financed by Vladimir Potanin, arguably the second richest man in the country. With Atomize’s deep ties to mainstream players in the financial ecosystem in Russia, the DFA license received from the CBR will propel the firm to offer a number of services including exchange services.

“The harmonization of rules and entry into the registry allows the company to provide customers with the opportunity to issue DFA on its platform and receive new types of products in tokenized form. The organization will also be able to independently carry out exchange operations within its platform since the rules of the information system contain the provisions of the DFA exchange rules,” the CBR said.

Is the Central Bank of Russia Still a Crypto Villain?

The Central Bank of Russia has not been in the right position with the media in recent times as the regulators are reportedly pushing for avenues to issue a blanket ban of all forms of cryptocurrency operations in the country, a follow-up to earlier threats to blacklist all trading platforms.

While the move was opposed by stakeholders in the tech space, the Central Bank has revised its proposal to include at least crypto mining activities. It claimed Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining, the process through which digital currencies like Bitcoin (BTC) are produced is harmful to the environment.

While the reasons behind the move by the CBR to grant the license to Atomize is obviously stated, the bank’s current stance markedly antagonizes its earlier clamor, a development that will further complicate the definition of Russia’s regulation in the cryptospace.