Putin economic adviser says "virtual assets should be reflected in the trade balance"

Maxim Oreshkin, economic adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, argued that virtual assets (cryptocurrencies) should be included in Russia's trade balance calculations. He assessed that virtual asset mining is an undervalued export industry and that the role of virtual assets in the Russian economy is growing.

On the 3rd (local time), according to virtual asset specialist media DL News, Oreshkin pointed out that although virtual asset mining essentially operates as a form of selling value overseas, it is not sufficiently reflected in existing statistics. He said it should be regarded as a Russian export industry and that the evaluation framework needs to be reorganized.

Oreshkin cited companies' actual transaction practices. He argued that companies settle import payments with virtual assets or sell mined tokens to earn foreign currency, so these activities affect the trade balance and should be reflected in statistics.

The remark was interpreted as emphasizing that virtual assets can be linked to payments and import-export flows beyond being mere investment assets. In particular, if digital asset-based transactions that traditional trade statistics fail to capture increase, there could be growing pressure to change how national external transaction indicators are calculated.