In the recent past, Russia was looking quite perplexed and whimsical on deciding the state of cryptocurrency operations within the country. The heads of different financial departments have been seen making quite contradictory statements and till now no final conclusion has been derived in this regard till now.
Taking a step further, Anatoly Aksakov, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets and other Russian deputies have recently submitted a draft-law on digital financial assets directed towards regulating Initial Coin Offerings and digital currencies, noted an official press release on March 20.
The press release notes that as per the recent instructions provided by Russian President Vladimir Putin the documents “On Digital Financial Assets” and “On Alternative Methods of Fundraising (Crowdfunding)” have been prepared while stating that the cryptocurrency regulations will become a law by July 1, 2018.
The legislative proposal put forward in State Duma, the lower house of country’s parliament aims to define that how digital currencies fit into the Russian law and remove the uncertainties that have kept the decision on a stand-still.
Under the new bill, only operators who are licensed under the law of “Securities Market” will be granted the permission to handle these digital assets. The bill reads: “Operators of exchanges of digital financial assets can only be legal entities established in accordance with the law of the Russian Federation and carry out the types of activities defined in articles 3, 4, 5 of the Federal Law of April 22, 1996.”
The Russian Ministry of Finance introduced the first bill “On Digital Financial Assets” earlier this year on Jan 25. The bill calls for considering cryptocurrencies as digital financial assets and allows customers to trade only through authorized customer exchanges. It also establishes KYC regulations for ICOs.
The newly proposed bill consider cryptocurrencies as property and mentions that it is not a legitimate means of payment in the country. The current bill asks for KYC regulations not only for ICOs but also for customer identity verification on digital currency exchanges.
Article 4 of the bill states: “A digital wallet may be opened by a digital exchange operator of financial assets only after passing the procedures for identifying its owner in accordance with the Federal Law ‘On Counteraction legislation (laundering) or proceeds from crime, and financing of terrorism.”
Russia will another country to join the likes of EU, US and South Korea that requires mandatory customer identity verification to trade in cryptocurrencies. This bill is expected to solve the continuous disagreements between Central Bank of Russia and the Ministry of Finance that have been ongoing for a long time.
