The putin news could very easily be fake. People know that the crypto markets react aggresively to any new news so, this is seldom used to manipulate the markets.

Its contradictory to the recent report that Russian govt just raised $100MM to build a giant bitcoin mining farm in Russia. So, why would they have "barriers" to crypto. Doesn't make sense to me.

Personally, I wouldn't stress too much. In the long run, every government will embrace bitcoin and legalise it. Asking people to stop doing something, doesn't lead to people stopping. It just creates a black market for it.

Well it's hard to tell when we actually don't know who started bitcoin.The world is generally divided into pro and anti globalist,Putin falling into the latter group.
When you think about it,bitcoin on one hand fights the banking worldwide domination,but on the other hand makes the world more connected and 'global' under one currency.
That is probably why leaders can't get to an agreement,they're still not sure what is the hidden intention behind the cryptocurrencies.

If it's true, it's a very good news. It's very good that Bitcoin is such important for Putin. This news is a sign that all of governments have to accept bitcoin in future. And Central banks concerns is completely normal. But I think soon Bitcoin will be used in all of activities.

Since last two day, the news about Russia banning bitcoin is circulating in the market but no one is sure about the authenticity of that news. That was published in a crypto related blog out of nowhere. That is the reason why the news didn't have any impact on the price of bitcoin. Also it makes no sense to put too many barriers around their people in the name of tax evasion. Because no country can survive alone with the direct tax paid by their citizens. The income of any country depends majorly on the export and indirect taxes and Russia is one of the biggest exporters of war machinery and natural gas. Putting a barrier around bitcoin will not have much impact on their economy, but the government will end up making few enemies.

But even the news posted currently again doesn't have any authenticity. So I believe I can happily ignore that and wait for an authentic source for the correct news to come out.

This statement was very ambiguous, basically he said that cryptocurrencies will not be banned but will be regulated, but he didn't specify how exactly they will be regulated. Maybe they will be allowed only with government permissions and users would have to report all they transactions. Maybe they will just apply usual taxes and KYC and that will be it. He was also talking about "digital currencies" and not only Bitcoin - it means that different currencies might get a different treating. But either way it's a very weak news, China didn't manage to crash Bitcoin and they have majority of miners and a strong economy - Russia has neither, so their influence on crypto is very small.

there have been some nice distinctions between the us- and russian leaders. it seems those differences are getting lesser and lesser recently

I really think putin had put a good thing to this because he is saying in the article to central banks to not create unnecessary barriers to Cryptocurrencies, and not the other way around He just stressed the importance to not “build up unnecessary barriers” for new technologies and not with bitcoin because there is certain risk with other Crypto.

its like trying to ban internet

as long as i can remember, someone in Russia has been saying the same things. the subjects are always taxation of bitcoin transactions and the illegal stuff that may be done with it. so far they have not done anything about it though.

it is obviously a bad thing if they even talk negatively or finally do something about it like banning bitcoin but in the end it wouldn't matter for bitcoin in long term.

Putin is a wise guy. And he is a crypto currency holder. He just testing out his influence with regards with the crypto market. Just few months ago, he was in the meeting with ETH founder Vitalik to discuss the possibility of creating a crypto currency in Russia. See the news here:

https://www.coindesk.com/vladimir-putin-vitalik-buterin-discuss-ethereum-opportunities-recent-forum/

If the Bitcoin banning in Russia is true. and you are from Russia, just HOLD your BTC, do not withdraw it, Putin wants you to drop your coin so he can buy them very cheap at the dip. Now whos the looser.