The Russian Parliament introduced a bill on the use of cryptocurrencies and tokens
Deputies headed by the head of the financial market Committee Anatoly Aksakov submitted to the Duma a bill “About digital financial assets”, which prohibits the use of digital financial assets as a means of payment in Russia. The document is published in the database of the lower house.
The document introduces definitions of digital financial assets, which include cryptocurrencies and tokens. In addition, a new type of contract concluded in electronic form — smart contract is legislated. Mining (activities aimed at creating cryptocurrencies) will be recognized as entrepreneurial activity, if energy consumption for three months exceeds the limits set by the government, the document says.
According to the initiative of the cryptocurrency and the token will be considered property. The bill allows the possibility of transactions on the exchange of tokens for rubles or foreign currency. But the order and conditions of such transactions will be assumed by the Central Bank in coordination with the government.
In addition, in order to mitigate the risks of owners of such assets, all transactions must be conducted through digital financial asset exchange operators, which can only be legal entities.
The Ministry of Finance decided to give the Central Bank a solution to the issue of exchange operations with cryptocurrency on the Russian market on March 19th. Initially, the regulator proposed to ban the circulation of digital money with the exception of tokens. The Ministry of Finance also believed that a legislative ban on exchange operations with cryptocurrency will lead to the creation of a shadow market.