Russian lawmakers are drafting legislation that would allow the creation of a “national cryptocurrency exchange”, local media have disclosed. Coins are now circulating outside government oversight and the Russian state is losing billions of rubles in budget revenue, one of the participants in the effort pointed out.
Lawmakers want Russia to have its own cryptocurrency exchange
Members of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, are working on a legal framework that will allow authorities in Moscow to set up a Russian crypto exchange. MPs discussed the initiative with industry representatives in mid-November, Russia’s leading business daily Vedomosti reported, citing two knowledgeable sources.
Lawmakers plan to prepare a draft taking into account the opinions of market participants and then submit it to the government and the Central Bank of Russia, the publication revealed. Representatives of the monetary authority and the finance ministry were not present at the meeting, the sources noted.
The plan is to introduce necessary changes to the country’s “Digital Financial Assets” law, which came into force in January 2021. It is still the main piece of legislation regulating the country’s crypto space, albeit partially .
Other Changes offers last week aim to legalize mining, while prohibiting the circulation, exchange and untargeted advertising of cryptocurrencies in Russia, with the exception of special “experimental legal regimes” allowing their use in payments for the imports.
The news that work is already underway to create the legal basis for a Russian crypto exchange was confirmed to Vedomosti by Sergey Altukhov, a member of the parliamentary economic policy committee of the ruling United Russia party. Commenting on the matter, the legislator insisted:
It makes no sense to say that cryptocurrencies don’t exist, but the problem is that they circulate widely outside of government regulation.
According to Altukhov, it all boils down to billions of rubles in lost budget revenue due to taxes the Russian Federation might collect. He stressed that it is necessary to create the conditions for the legalization of cryptocurrencies and to adjust the “rules of the game” so that they do not contradict the positions of the executive branch and the central bank.
One of the sources also pointed out that the future exchange is not seen as a platform that will facilitate the dissemination of cryptocurrencies or their use as a means of payment in Russia, but rather as a place where Russians can declare and convert their numeric. fiat holdings. According to him, at least one such website should be created under Russian jurisdiction to avoid possible foreign restrictions and security risks arising from storing data abroad.
Do you think Russia will be able to establish its own cryptocurrency exchange? Tell us in the comments section below.
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