Ethereum Piques Vladimir Putin’s Interest

Moving at the speed of light was once reserved for the comic book hero Flash, but with nearly every industry going digital, technology may be giving him a run for his money.

To help diversify its economy outside of oil and gas, Russian president Vladimir Putin is looking into investing in Ethereum, bitcoin’s main cryptocurrency competition.

While Russia’s central bank has already put an Ethereum-based blockchain pilot project in motion for its online payments, there have been talks of a national virtual currency in the future.

Putin met with Ethereum’s founder, Vitalik Buterin, at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum just last week to discuss the possibility of implementing bitcoin-competitor Ethereum in a broader sense.

Ethereum Foundation’s adviser, Vlad Martynov, shared how blockchain could impact businesses in the digital age and what it could mean for Russia: “Blockchain may have the same effect on businesses that the emergence on the internet once had — it would change business models and eliminate intermediaries such as escrow agents and clerks. If Russia implements it first, it will gain similar advantages to those the western countries did at the start of the internet age.”