Managing partner Andrey Orlov comments a new project of federal law about cryptocurrency.
Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation has posted a new project of federal law today “about digital financial assets” (cryptocurrency regulation). Managing partner Andrey Orlov comments:
During the discussion of this law project the participants faced a controversial issue: whether they should be hard on cryptocurrency or not. Eventually, the final document appeared to be quite fair, comparing to other countries.
They named tokens and cryptocurrencies “Digital financial assets” and placed them in the category of “Assets”. According to this document it is prohibited to use cryptocurrency to pay for goods or services on the territory of the Russian Federation. Identification of cryptocurrency wallets owners becomes obligatory and statutory. A separate section of the document states requirements and conditions for tokens emission and ICOs. It is nice to see that they made it obligatory to reveal token sale beneficiaries, as well as characteristics and authorities of tokens. They also mentioned basic requirements towards Public Offers and White Papers. Public Offers must be signed with EDS and must be published no later than in 3 days before Token Sale. It is prohibited to advertise projects, or sell their tokens, if they do not have White Papers. It was previously discussed that the hard cap for ICOs should be limited to 1 billion RUB (18 million USD), but there is nothing about it in the document, thus the hard cap remains unlimited.
FinShi Capital believes this document to be a good thing. If it is confirmed, there will be some basic regulation of ICO market and cryptocurrency. Though we hope that they will remove the paragraph that limits all ICO participants to only 50k RUB investments or makes them become accredited investors. Our fund might try to organize one of its portfolio projects ICO in Russian jurisdiction, if this document eventually becomes official.
