The government approved a “road map” to regulate operations with cryptocurrency – RBC

The Government of the Russian Federation has prepared a roadmap for the regulation of cryptocurrencies, which is designed for the period until the end of 2022. About it writes RBC with reference to sources and the document itself.

According to the publication, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economic Development, the Prosecutor General’s Office, Rosfinmonitoring, the Federal Security Service, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Federal Tax Service, the Ministry of Digital Development and the Bank of Russia participated in the preparation of the document. At the same time, RBC sources said that the latter was the only one who did not support the initiative.

According to RBC, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko noted in the document that it supports the approach of regulating cryptocurrencies, rather than banning them. The source of the publication added that “a complete ban is impossible and will entail going into the shadow market.”

RBC writes that among the ideas is to determine administrative or criminal liability for crimes using cryptocurrencies, as well as the possible “landing” of a crypto platform in Russia. In addition, it is proposed to finalize the provisions of the “regulatory-restrictive regime”, determine the status of market participants and the procedure for their activities, select a body that will monitor this area, and develop mechanisms for registering and reporting organizations.

Earlier, Bloomberg sources said that Russian President Vladimir Putin did not support the proposal of the Central Bank to completely ban cryptocurrencies in Russia and advocated the regulation of mining. On January 26, the president urged the government and the Central Bank to come to an agreement on the regulation of cryptocurrency in the near future.

January 20 Central Bank proposed prohibit any operations with cryptocurrencies on the infrastructure of the Russian financial market and introduce liability for Russians and Russian legal entities for purchases in cryptocurrencies. According to Bloomberg, The FSB convinced the chairman of the Central Bank of Russia, Elvira Nabiullina, to support a complete ban on operations with cryptocurrencies in Russia in order to deprive “unwanted organizations” and “foreign agents” of access to funding.

Ministry of Finance spoke against this initiative.

“The first thing to do is, of course, to protect the interests of our citizens, the consumers of these services, those who buy these assets or use cryptocurrency in some other technological solutions. In this regard, of course, in my opinion, it is necessary to regulate, not ban,” said Ivan Chebeskov, director of the financial policy department of the Ministry of Finance.

The CEO of the Cybernomics project, Mikhail Khudokormov, in an interview with The Insider noted that the proposal of the Central Bank is mainly aimed at banning mining.

“Obviously, the financial authorities could not find the best option for how this industry could be integrated into the economic sphere of the Russian Federation. This, in my opinion, is one of the most controversial and difficult aspects to discuss in the coming months, since the mining industry in Russia has grown quite a lot over the past year due to new players. A ban on mining means losses and the risk of closing a large number of farms, or an urgent relocation. At the same time, there are not so many comfortable jurisdictions, the example of Kazakhstan shows that not every country can be guaranteed to be reliable for the crypto mining industry. For ordinary investors in the Russian Federation, these recommendations and subsequent amendments to the law will also be negative. There are risks of the withdrawal of funds from Russian clients to foreign jurisdictions, as well as the risk that an even more significant shadow volume of crypto services will appear in the Russian Federation, ”the expert believes.