Russian President Vladimir Putin obliged Russian government and the Bank of Russia to prepare legislation on ICO and cryptocurrencies by July 2018.
Russian President Vladimir Putin obliged Russian government and the Bank of Russia to prepare legislation on ICO and cryptocurrencies.
A series of directives, aimed at recognition of cryptocurrencies and its regulation at the country level, were published on the Russian Presidential website on October 21.
Firstly, Vladimir Putin instructed to define notions concerning blockchain technology and cryptocurrency.
“The Government of the Russian Federation, in conjunction with the Bank of Russia, shall ensure that the following changes are introduced in the legislation of the Russian Federation
a) determination of the status of digital technologies used in the financial sphere and their concepts (including such as “technology of distributed registries”, “digital letters of credit”, “digital mortgage”, “crypto-currency”, “token”, “smart contract”)”.
The next point of the document obliged to register all companies engaged in Bitcoin mining by ASIC hardware. Taxation policy for such operation should be established and implemented.
According to the published document, Russian President instructed to establish special procedures for initial public offering (ICO) that should be done by analogy with primary securities offering. The deadline of such procedures implementation is July 1, 2018.
The other instruction, described in the document, is creation of o-called regulatory “sandbox”. “Sandbox” works as a platform where blockchain-focused companies can test products before legislation system will be implemented. Russia can attract blockchain-focused companies thanks to “sandbox”. The deadline this is December 20, 2017.
It should be added, that it is planned to realize legislation on ICO and cryptocurrencies not only in Russia but also within the Eurasian Economic Union, which features Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.
Earlier this year some representatives of Russian authorities shared opinion that digital currency could be legalized and correspondent regulation could be established.
In September, Anton Siluanov, Russia’s Finance Minister, announced that draft bill on legalization of cryptocurrencies in the Russian Federation was prepared and new legislation could appear by the end of 2017.
Earlier this year, Alexey Moiseev, Deputy Finance Minister, informed that Russian Government authorities planned to recognize the legitimacy of cryptocurrencies in order to prevent illegal money transactions.
Russia intention to issue its own official cryptocurrency proves high interest in digital and blockchain technology. Details about national blockchain-based cryptocurrency, named CryptoRuble, were revealed by Nikolay Nikiforov, Russian Minister of Communications earlier this month.
In October, Vladimir Putin called crypto-currencies «dubicious» and ensured that it was a pyramid scheme and the risks were too high.
This warning statement of Russian President shows that blockchain technology and ICO can appear and develop in Russia only by strict legislation policy and control of the Government and the Bank of Russia.
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