Note from the CEO:  Legal? Not legal? How to define bitcoin (cryptocurrencies) is a real Russian dilemma. But, while waiting lets go down to the lobby at the state owned bank headquarters and grab a coffee and pastry AND pay in bitcoin. Eat and drink fast, you could get bitcoin busted and I bet they don’t take cryptocurrency in Siberia.

"While Russian authorities are still trying to define the legal status of bitcoin, the virtual currency has found use in Moscow in the lobby of the country’s biggest bank.

A coffee stand at the headquarters of state-owned Sberbank PJSC is one of the first Moscow vendors to take bitcoin, allowing clients to buy espresso and croissants with the crypto-currency even as some Russian regulators threaten to ban its use.

Russia is late to the bitcoin party, still debating its legality even as one of the people who helped popularize the once-trendy digital currency globally says the software that it relies on is too rigid to gain wide adoption. The economy could benefit if the Kremlin abandons plans to criminalize virtual currencies because it might lead to the more active development of innovative technologies, according to Gil Luria, an analyst at Wedbush Securities Inc. in Los Angeles."

Read Full Article at Bloomberg