The Russian Central Bank intends to recommend commercial banks block money transfers to cryptocurrency exchanges in order to protect retail investors from transactions made under the influence of emotions.

The Central Bank announced negotiations with commercial banks in order to limit money transfers to cryptocurrency exchanges and trading platforms.

“We are working with the banking system so that it slows down payments to crypto exchanges, blocking the opportunities for emotional purchases of such products,” said the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank Sergei Shvetsov during a panel discussion at the International Banking Forum organized by the Association of Russian Banks.

According to him, the regulator is preparing appropriate legislative changes.

“We are now discussing legislative changes to more clearly prohibit the use of cryptocurrency and introduce some kind of liability,” he added. As he explained later, the legislative changes will imply both administrative and criminal liability.

The purpose of the restrictions is to protect retail investors from emotional purchases.

“From our point of view, this is a big minefield. What can we do here: we can explain to people that this is a highly risky story, there is no protection, even the storage itself is subject to a bunch of risks."

According to the Central Bank, investments of Russian residents in cryptocurrencies amount to about 7 trillion rubles ($100 billion).

Now the State Duma is considering a bill that obliges citizens to declare cryptocurrency if the turnover of funds or the account balance for operations for the year is more than 600,000 rubles ($8500).