MOSCOW, Dec 17 (Reuters) - The Russian Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina spoke at an online press conference after the central bank raised its key rate to 8.5% on Friday. read more Nabiullina spoke in Russian. The quotes below were translated into English by Reuters. ON INFLATION "Inflation remains high and our decision (to hike the key interest rate) should ensure that it returns towards our target by the end of 2022. Very strict monetary policy could quickly bring inflation back down to 4%, but the cost of this could be a significant reduction in economic activity." "Inflation as of the end of 2021 is highly dependent on temporary, volatile factors. If the situation develops favourably, it is quite possible that we will found ourselves at 7.9%, the upper limit of our forecast. But... inflation could be higher, around 8%." ON MONETARY POLICY "Monetary policy needs to be balanced, but we cannot ignore temporary factors. They increase inflationary expectations." "It"s definitely too early to speak of the end of the monetary policy tightening cycle in December." "The main options that we considered were (rate hikes) of 50, 75 and 100 basis points. We did not consider other (rate hike) options." ON POSSIBLE FUTURE RATE HIKES "The board of directors is inclined to believe that we most likely have not reached the level of monetary policy toughness needed to bring back inflation to target next year. This is why we cannot rule out the possibility of a rate hike at the next meetings." "We cannot rule out that we might increase the key rate more than once." ON CRYPTOCURRENCIES "Our attitude towards cryptocurrencies is sceptical to put it mildly. This is linked to the fact that they carry big risks for retail investors, their volatility is high and cryptocurrencies are often used in illegal operations…. We therefore cannot welcome investments into such assets. We are advocating for Russia"s financial infrastructure not to be used for investments into cryptocurrencies and this is possible to implement." ON OFZ TREASURY BONDS AND FOREIGN INVESTORS "The share of foreign investors in OFZ treasury bonds has decreased. It is slightly less than 20% but in absolute terms it fluctuates around the same level. We do not have any special expectations regarding changes in the near future to the amount (of foreign investors) we are seeing."