At a time when the government of Russia seems to be inching closer to outright banning Bitcoin, or at least trying to do so, the Russian central bank apparently is taking a more realistic approach.

According to CoinDesk, deputy chair Olga Skorobogatova has been talking to others in the government and advising that the adoption of blockchain technologies is almost a foregone conclusion at this point.

It’s not clear to us how schizophrenic this is at this point since it seems like those on the inside of the banking industry view blockchains as just another, but potentially more efficient, way to keep books and settle accounts, but not as a financial asset in-and-of-itself.

There are still a lot of unknowns with Bitcoin – and one of them is about whether a private, centralized blockchain can really provide the value that the banks are hoping for, or if a decentralized, tokenized blockchain, Bitcoin, is necessary to provide the trustless movement of value across institutions and borders.

Time will tell, but our money is on the one, the original, blockchain.