Russia is getting involved big into the cryptocurrency space.
Already Putin discussed matters with Vitalik Buterin, now they are extending their mining efforts.
For Russia this may be a great opportunity - vast land masses, a cold climate (for supercomputer mining efforts), talented programmers.
Geopolitically Russia also fears being cut off from the SWIFT system as a last resort sort of economic warfare - by getting into Bitcoin early they mitigate these consequences.
Russia has been trying hard already to diversify their economy away from natural gas - maybe mining digital assets may be just that.
With a major power getting involved directly, it will not be just a matter of time until the price of bitcoin skyrockets even further!
Read more here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/putin-s-aide-seeks-100-million-to-rival-china-in-bitcoin-mining