By Andrei Skvarsky.
The Russian government has announced a plan to grant full-scale legality to cryptocurrencies as the central bank has obviously ditched a proposal for what, to all intents and purposes, would have been a blanket ban on digital money.
Today cryptocurrencies have an ambiguous legal status in Russia. While it is allowed to own cryptos, there is no law authorising transactions in them.
At the same time, Russians mine and use cryptocurrencies on a growing scale, which is admitted in a guideline document cited by East-West Digital News, Bitcoin.com and various other media outlets.
“In recent years there has been a substantial increase in volumes of money invested in cryptocurrencies by citizens of the Russian Federation,” the document says.
Citing “expert estimates”, it says Russians own about 2 trillion roubles ($26.5bn) via more than 12m cryptocurrency wallets. Moreover, Russia ranks third worldwide in terms of mining capacity, according to “expert data” cited in the document, entitled Concept for the Legal Regulation of Organisation Mechanisms for the Use of Digital Currencies.
The mining and use of cryptocurrencies would be put in a tight regulatory framework if the government’s plan becomes law.
Cryptocurrency service providers would need licensing and would have to meet certain capital liquidity and sufficiency requirements. They would have the duty of warning clients about “high risks” involved in cryptocurrency transactions.
The plan is a joint effort by several governmental bodies, including the central bank, which on January 20 proposed bans on the mining of cryptocurrencies and on payments and corporate investment in them.
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