Russian Court Overturns Cryptocurrency Media Ban

A city court in St. Petersburg, Russia, has overturned a decision made by a district court in 2016 that effectively blocked cryptocurrency media site bitcoininfo.ru for the country's inhabitants.

The decision came about after the court received an order from Russia's Supreme Court in April to review the case, as previously reported by CoinDesk.

"The St. Petersburg City Court quashed the decision of the district court to recognize the information posted on the Bitcoininfo.ru website," the city court was quoted as saying in a Tass report Tuesday.

The website's owner told the news agency that the St. Petersburg city prosecutor's statements disclosed that about 100 cryptocurrency media sites had been blocked following the ruling.

In July 2016, the Vyborg district court of St. Petersburg ruled to block bitcoininfo.ru without allowing the site's owners go through an initial trial. The basis of the ruling was that cryptocurrencies are "a means of virtual payment and accumulation," and, thus, providing related information is illegal as it could undermine the country's fiat currency.

Following the ban, the St. Petersburg city court also declined the site owners' appeal to reconsider the case, the report said, until the supreme court overturned the decision.

The latest ruling comes as Russia is in the process of drawing up and passing a regulatory framework for the cryptocurrency industry – one expected to be ready by summer of this year, as previously demanded by President Vladimir Putin.

St. Petersburg image via Shutterstock