Russian State Duma’s Committee for Legislative Work at the legislature has indicated it will support the first reading of an initiative that will add the basic norms of digital economy to the Russian Federation Civil Code, as reported by Izvestia, a local news outlet May 16.
Head of the Legislative Work committee, Pavel Krasheninnikov of political party United Russia, told the news media that the initiative aims to “minimize the existing risks of using digital objects for transferring assets into an unregulated digital environment for legalization of criminal incomes, bankruptcy fraud or for sponsoring terrorist groups,” which is the latest moves towards crypto regulationsin the country.
The bill, which is scheduled to be considered next week, is a separate law developed by the Central Bank, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Economic Development is aimed to set conditions for digital currencies to be used as payment “in controlled quantities,” and does not assert that digital confirmation by a user in a smart contract is equal to his written consent.
As reported by CBR, Russian president Vladimir Putin had disclosed the country decision to begin crypto regulation on July, and this led to a bill “On Digital Financial Assets” in March of this year, which would provide federal laws governing cryptocurrencies and Initial Coin Offerings (ICO), proposed by the legislature, and the bill defines crypto and digital tokens as assets only to be traded on authorized exchanges, and also required user account at crypto exchanges to comply with AML and counter terrorism financing regulations. A review draft of the bill from mid-April added that the exchange of crypto for fiat above around $9,600 will be subjected to mandatory currency exchange regulation.
Igor Sudets, the director of the program “Blockchain for Lawyers” at the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics in Moscow, had reportedly told Izvestia that “it is important that the crypto currencyand tokens are included in the legal field of the Russian Federation”:
“on the one hand, these are opportunities that we have no right to miss. On the other hand, while they can be used to give bribes, withdraw money in the case of bankruptcy, pay black salaries, and simply get stolen – with no repercussions. ”
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