Russian Opposition Party Launches Dedicated New Altcoin

Pro-crypto Russian politician Boris Titov has launched another initiative in the form of an altcoin for his Partiya Rosta party.

Titov, who is also a business ombudsman for the Kaliningrad region, announced a partnership with the Blockchain platform Waves to create a new token, Upcoin.

The idea is to woo party sign-ups by distributing wallets to those registering on Partiya Rosta’s website, with coins awarded for participating in associated activities.

“It’s not an exchangeable financial entity,” Titov explained to local news portal Znak in March, “but more like an internal system for gauging people’s opinions.”

“Upcoin gives us new possibilities… we can use it to gather funds for projects, deliver pilot schemes within the community and collaborate on B2B projects.”

Russia recently announced it could “legalize” Bitcoin and cryptocurrency fully in 2018, by following examples set by Japan. Prior to the announcement, crypto languished in an uneasy gray area, with various recorded instances of unfavorable treatment by law enforcement for its use.

Titov nonetheless stated that Kaliningrad could become an experiment for ‘legal’ Bitcoin usage, regardless of what occurred in Moscow with regards to legislation.

“It’s very important that cryptocurrency circulation is not regulated by any form of sanctions,” he told Interfax in February.

“That may sound like a Utopian concept but new times call for new measures. Kaliningrad can build on that.”