Of course all the money in use in banks around the world is a largely digital artifact and created because that's how banks work. Russia is just not bothering to spend money on the paper to print the root nodes?<p>It's interesting to me that there is a tragedy of the commons situation here which benefits Russia and harms hackers. If there was a single hacker in the world, they would benefit the most to wait until the currency is adopted widely, then try to exploit it. Since other people will definitely try to exploit it first, we can expect hackers to try what they can to extract value early, and it will probably happen before the acceptance of the currency is sufficient enough for it to be a real problem.<p>I am wondering if this also explains the active ongoing cyber war which I've always been thankful for and confused at existing. Unused exploits may become valueless if unused (though the value is less clearly defined than for a digital currency), so people are incentived to use them when they have them.