The law regulating any actions with cryptocurrency on the territory of Russia, the State Duma of the Russian Federation may adopt in the coming days, until the end of June 2019. This was announced by the head of the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market, Anatoly Aksakov.
Currently, virtually everything related to virtual currencies – the creation, organization, issuance, circulation, opening of exchange points, and so on – is not regulated by the Russian body of legislation.
In the first reading, the draft law “On digital financial assets” was reviewed and adopted by deputies in the spring of 2018. The authors of the project proposed to introduce such notions as “token”, “cryptocurrency” and “operation with digital financial assets” into the Russian legislation.
Cryptocurrency was defined as a digital asset that is created and accounted for in the distributed digital transaction registry by participants of this registry, following certain rules; Token – as a type of digital financial asset, which is issued by the issuer to attract financing.
Both cryptocurrencies and tokens were proposed to be given the status of property, which is why they were removed from the list of means of payment in Russia.
It was proposed to prohibit the exchange of cryptocurrencies for fiat (real) money, and to allow the exchange of tokens. The creation of cryptocurrency – mining – proposed to limit the limits of energy consumption. In addition, the draft law enshrines a new type of contract concluded in electronic form, the obligations of which are fulfilled using digital financial technologies – smart contracts .
By the second reading in the State Duma , the concepts “digital money”, “cryptocurrency”, “token” and “smart contract” were excluded from the text of the document. The text defines digital financial assets – such assets are digital rights, including liabilities and other rights, including monetary claims, as well as the possibility of exercising rights to equity securities and rights to demand the transfer of equity securities, which are enshrined in digital financial assets.
However, the final adoption of the Law on Digital Financial Assets was postponed due to the requirements of the FATF (Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, Commission for the Development of Financial Measures against Money Laundering), an intergovernmental organization that produces global standards for countering money laundering. criminal proceeds and the financing of terrorism.
At one of the sessions, FATF proposed to settle the issue related to cryptocurrencies, which is why consideration of the law was postponed, but to date, the State Duma deputies have prepared their proposals.
According to Anatoly Aksakov, after a series of critical falls in 2018, by now the rate of the main world cryptocurrency has strengthened again, and by the end of the first decade of June 2019 the cost of one bitcoin was $ 7,730. Its popularity in Russia, as well as the demand for other popular cryptocurrencies, is growing again.
However, as expected in the wording of the draft law “On digital financial assets” prepared for the third reading by the State Duma, any actions not covered by Russian law, operations with cryptocurrency, including mining, are supposed to be given the status of illegitimate and introduce administrative responsibility for them, including and heavy fines. True, while their size is not known.
Citizens of Russia will be able to own Bitcoins , but only as an exception: if they were acquired under foreign law at foreign exchange and sale points, the owners will be exempt from paying a fine. It will not be possible to buy or sell them on the territory of the Russian Federation.
Publication date 15.06.2019
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