Russia Sort Of Dropped The Hammer On Bitcoin, Crypto

Russia’s State Duma hates bitcoin, ether, ripple, you name it. If it is not the ruble, or a currency issued by a state, Russia’s government is not into it.

The government posted an updated version of their new draft law “On Digital Financial Assets” on Monday for public comment, along with it additional documents that significantly change the way cryptocurrency is regulated in Russia. Breaking the rules comes with legal penalties now. But the good news is, Russians don’t have to give up their fixation on cryptocurrencies.

The law, which is not a major shift in tune from The Kremlin or the Central Bank in regards to official positions on privately issued crypto currencies, does however prohibit the circulation of all cryptocurrencies, as well as their mining and advertising.

“Сryptocurrencies go completely into the gray zone in Russia,” says Artem Kalikhov, chief product officer of Waves Enterprise. “People who own one or two bitcoins are not at risk. But all cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets hosted on Russian sites with a .ru at the end are now at risk.”

The new law doesn’t mean Russians cannot own digital financial assets legally. The Russian Central Bank has not yet introduced the rules for inclusion in cryptos as a security. The Russia crypto market is waiting for that still.

Anatoly Aksakov, a member of the Russian State Duma, says that the country’s new crypto law won’t go into affect until the summer.

Aksakov said on Thursday of last week that people can buy and hold cryptocurrencies, but should declare it on their taxes. By declaring it, they will be given legal protections, since the cryptocurrency will be considered as a property. If they don’t declare it, they will not have any legal protections. Either way, there will be no legal penalties for owning cryptocurrencies, according to a report by RBC Russia.

Waves was building a blockchain trading platform for the National Settlement Depository owned by the Moscow Exchange to see how it would work to trade crypto currencies. But that project was never implemented. They are building blockchain platform pilot program for Rosseti, a Russian electric grid operator.

Russia Sort Of Dropped The Hammer On Bitcoin, Crypto, Forbes, Jun 2