New remarks by new Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin seem to signify that the country might not be quite as tough on cryptocurrencies as people were reporting last November.
Around Thanksgiving, global news reports were suggesting that the Russian legislature was preparing to sign a bill into law that would effectively ban cryptocurrency, and even allow police to confiscate Bitcoin from holders, although it’s far from clear how something like that would work practically.
That law, to date, has not materialized into actual policy, and now, amid a rash of top resignations by Russian politicians, Mishustin is signaling that some reforms may be in order. Interestingly, it’s his very first day on the job.
“The state should become a digital platform that is created for people,” Mishustin said cryptically this morning in one of the first press statements of his tenure.
There’s more context, though, for Russian thawing on crypto: we’ve been reporting on how many of the world’s largest national economies view the field as something of an “arms race” where the first to successfully regulate (not ban) crypto may profit immensely.
Supportive remarks by Binance Chairman Changpeng Zhao on Russian government work, and cross-industry efforts to drive Bitcoin solutions are some signs of positive collaboration between public and private sectors in Russia when it comes to cryptocurrencies.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin, as the major bellwether for how cryptocurrency will fare in 2020, has been quietly creeping up from its Thanksgiving trough, where BTC traded down around $7000. This morning, Bitcoin is up to around $8600, which is a healthy growth and brings the coin back up to prior levels in early November of last year.
Lest traders break out the champagne too early, Omkar Godbole at Coindesk, who has been expertly tracking BTC prices for years, has this to say about the current market context:
“The Bitcoin market is telling a tale of bullish exhaustion with indecisive price action following a rise to the highest point since November,” Godbole writes today. “The top cryptocurrency witnessed two-way business on Wednesday. Prices rose from lows near $8,550 seen during the Asian trading hours to a two-month high of $8,903, only to end the day (UTC) on a flat note at $8,808, … essentially, Bitcoin created a ‘doji’ candle, which is widely considered a sign of indecision in the marketplace.”
The doji is regarded by insiders as one of many “patterns that traders should know” – over at Investopedia, James Chen tells us what a doji candle is, and what it looks like, in explication updated, curiously, as recently as December of 2019.
“A doji is a name for a session in which the candlestick for a security has an open and close that are virtually equal and are often components in patterns. Doji candlesticks look like a cross, inverted cross or plus sign.”
In summary, look out for that doji candle – but it’s also good to pay attention to big governments and their long-term crypto policy – because that moves markets, too.