Bitstamp Bans Russia

Bitstamp declared in an email that they are banning access from all IP addresses originating from the Russian Federation to their website.. The email was posted on Bitcointalk citing a draft proposal, via Coindesk, for Russia to restrict surrogate money. Coindesk claims upon speaking with the deputy minister of finance, Alexey Moiseev, that there are plans to create laws to punish any individual attempting to convert cryptocurrency into Rubles. However, no official law has yet to be implemented banning the use of Bitcoin in Russia, and a draft proposal to amend the use of surrogate money was published on a Russian news outlet which states (translated):

cryptocurrency, production of which is not carried out on the territory of the Russian Federation, will no longer be money substitutes

If ratified the aforementioned amendments would not go into effect until sometime 2017, thus cryptocurrency produced outside of Russian jurisdiction would technically be legal. Bitstamp's preemptive banning of Russian customers, similar to that of Satoshi Dice blacklisting US-based IP addressed, seems completely unwarranted. It has yet to be confirmed whether or not the funds of Russian customers are accessible for withdrawal or have been "frozen" by the exchange.

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