A draft of the Russian Federal Law “On digital financial assets”
Russian Ministry of Finance (MinFin) published a draft of the Federal Law “On digital financial assets”
The draft was published on January 25, 2018. And it is planned that the law will be passed and adopted by July 1, 2018 (as the Mr. Putin announced).
The law is very raw. It is very usual situation for Russian legislative machine which is huge and very bureaucratic. At this stage the draft looks like an effort to legalize crypto-business with a very strong desire to report the President that his order was executed, combined with an attempt to make some mixture between already existing reality of crypto world and actually operating very deeply regulated financial system in Russia.
It is a very good first step for the beginning of this long way, but they have to liberalize the draft in order not to stimulate parallel existence of official marked and shadow marked in crypto word.
By my opinion, main negative points are:
1) Impossibility to use the cryptocurrencies as payment instruments.
It is obvious that final mission of these new instruments: to become not only an investment object, but also commonly used payment instruments.
2) All exchange operations may be through professional brokers, dialers, exchanges and other institutions having special permissions (licenses) from Russian regulator.
This is obvious that only real competitive market may identify the most effective ways. They should not introduce limits. They should provide all state-regulated institutions with the right to (1) participate in that open market and (2) convince the market that they are more reliable and preferable then others.
3) Not a single word devoted to the cryptocurrencies and tokens issued by market participants being nor under Russian jurisdiction.
It is potential possibility for broad restrictions as usually Russian law enforcement officials base their approach on the paradigm: “which is not permitted — that is prohibited”.
4) Limitations for investment by ordinary investors (not being qualified market investors).
Reality is quite opposite: a lot of investors are just natural persons trying to diversify their assets, and they are already in.
5) Not a single word devoted to ICOs that are already exist and effectively traded.
As well known, most of ICOs wait for a legal harbor to drop anchor there. In case of the discussed draft we unlikely will be able to see a lot of existing crypto world residents coming into Russia.
As a final word for today I have to say that it is very easy to criticize something new, and we should do it simultaneously with our suggestions of how to improve this obviously innovative initiative of Russian state.