Russia’s Yandex Search Engine Adds Cryptocurrencies to Its Converter

Yandex, the largest Russian search engine, has updated its currency converter, adding cryptocurrencies. The widget now shows the rates of these coins in a number of fiat currencies, with plans to introduce crypto-to-crypto pairs in the future as well.

Users of Russia’s leading search engine, Yandex, can view information about over 140 most popular cryptocurrencies, besides the data for the national currencies of various countries. The crypto rates have been added to the latest version of its currency converter, the company announced.

The widget, which features a price chart and a quick conversion tool, is located right above the search results, the Russian Rb.ru news outlet reported, quoting Yandex. The software recognizes standard keywords and even slang or imprecise language in the query.

The value of the coins and tokens of interest can be displayed in Russian rubles, U.S. dollars, euros, and other fiat currencies. More pairs will be added in the future, as well as the option to see the price of a given digital asset in another cryptocurrency.

Yandex sources market data from Coingecko, one of the largest aggregation portals in the crypto space, the report noted. According to the Russian search engine’s own statistics, bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin, dogecoin, and solana have been the most popular cryptos by number of search queries in 2022.

Global online platforms support similar functions but the access to some of them has been restricted for Russians. As noted by RBC Crypto, a feature allowing the tracking of cryptocurrency prices was launched by Twitter in December, last year, but the social media platform is blocked in Russia.

A law “On Digital Financial Assets” entered into force in Russia in January, 2021 but the government is yet to properly regulate transactions with decentralized cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. According to statements by officials, this should happen in 2023.

A bill designed to legalize crypto mining was submitted to the Russian parliament in November, 2022. The legislation aims to also regulate the exchange of the mined cryptocurrencies on trading platforms abroad or under special legal regimes in Russia.

Do you think Yandex will introduce more crypto-related features in the future? Tell us in the comments section below.