Top Tech Stories Feb 7: Blockchain metals marketplace gets Russia’s first license 

FINTECH

> Landmark Blockchain platform license: Russia’s central bank issued a license to exchange digital financial assets to Atomyze, a blockchain-based metals marketplace platform – making it the first first company to do so legally in Russia. [Source: Reuters]

> Tinkoff’s South-East Asia expansion: Pavel Fedorov, co-CEO of London-listed neobank Tinkoff, spoke to The Banker about how the company’s growth was “undeterred by the Covid-19 pandemic” and their plan to expand into south-east Asia. [Source: The Banker]

> No more domestic Western Union transfers within Russia: the company will stop domestic transfer services in Russian on April 1 citing weak customer demand, deciding to focus their business on international transactions instead. [Source: RBC]

CRYPTO

> Stricter bank account supervision ahead: Central Bank of Russia is giving the country’s lenders a November deadline for ensuring tighter supervision and monitoring of bank clients’ accounts for any suspicious activities, which includes crypto transactions. [Source: Izvestia]

> A trillion-ruble opportunity: the Russian government is seeing the $214 billion crypto market as an opportunity, planning to tax it. The estimated tax revenue is valued at 1 trillion rubles ($13.3 billion), according to The Bell. [Sources: The Bell, Bloomberg]

SCIENCE

​​> Monkey vision implants are a reality in Russia: Russian scientists at Research Institute for Medical Primatology have installed and started preclinical trials on baboons last year, planning to move on to 10 human volunteers in 2023. [Source: Rbth.com]