UPDATE: Cbanker says cryptocurrency fever cooling down globally

(Adds comment in last 2 paragraphs)

SOCHI, Oct 18 (PRIME) -- Cryptocurrency fever is cooling down across the globe, and business exploits new technologies with greater caution, Russian Central Bank Chairwoman Elvira Nabiullina said on Thursday at a forum devoted to financial technologies.

“We’ve been holding the forum for a fourth time, and cryptocurrency fever has burst out during this period, which luckily, in our opinion, is calming down. In this period such technologies as blockchain provoked crazy enthusiasm, and now, as we see it, people are sober about these technologies,” Nabiullina said.

“Business is trying to improve such technologies and is looking for cases for practical application.”

The tool of an initial coin offering (ICO) has become an excellent means of attracting money for new products. “But we see that at the first stage, this tool was not protected enough against fraudsters,” the official said.

“Digital technologies are becoming an ordinary thing of the modern world. Digital finances are not the world of an advanced consumer, but of a massive consumer.”

Nabiullina explained popularity of cryptocurrencies by the coincidence of the society’s demand for quick money and independence from the state.

“It all materialized in cryptocurrencies. The need for skirting capital limitations of cross-border operations in several countries. The need for a place to launder money. The need for new technologies,” she said.

It is still important to work with these needs and new technologies, rather than on cryptocurrencies, Nabiullina said, adding that the central bank thinks that the blockchain technology is very promising.

End