The economy Ministry criticized under consideration in the state Duma a bill that actually prohibits the circulation of cryptocurrency in Russia. The Ministry believes it possible to create mechanisms for the controlled circulation of virtual money. Experts believe that the adoption of bills in this option will lead to the creation of “uncontrolled black market.””B” made acquainted with the letter of the Ministry of economy sent to the state Duma criticized the new version of the bill on digital financial assets, and the draft law on digital currencies. At the end of may the state Duma has been posted an updated version of the draft law “On digital of financial assets” for the second reading, together with it, additional documents, substantially changing the regulation of the market of virtual currencies and the responsibility for violations (see “Kommersant” on June 1). The economy Ministry has confirmed that it has handed over to the state Duma its position.According to the representative of the Ministry, the proposed bills on regulation aimed at the complete prohibition of production and circulation of the existing types of cryptocurrencies, the criminalization of activities of legal entities and individual entrepreneurs related to the issuance and circulation of cryptocurrency assets. In addition, according to the Ministry of economy, the transboundary nature of existing crypto systems (in the case of the introduction of the proposed regulation) will not allow to protect the rights of users of digital currency will lead to the displacement of all operations with them outside of Russia, which in turn will lead to losses for the economy.The draft law “On digital of financial assets” after long discussions, was adopted in the first reading in 2018. Then he almost did not touch existing virtual currencies. While the Central Bank has repeatedly spoken out against the treatment of cryptocurrencies in Russia.In the letter, the economy Ministry said the need to change the concept of the package of bills, envisaging “the establishment of mechanisms for the controlled circulation of cryptocurrency”. Such mechanisms can be assigned including the establishment of requirements to their production and turnover, requirements for operators of production and circulation, permitting the admission of these operators to the implementation of the activities of the state control over them. By-laws regulating this issue are encouraged to refer to the powers of the government of the Russian Federation (jointly with the Bank of Russia).The head of the financial market Committee of the state Duma Anatoly Aksakov told “Kommersant” that the letter of the Ministry of economy has not yet seen. “It’s good that the criticism is: we don’t need approval, we need a critic,” he said. According to him, the Bank of Russia in General supports the bills, “with some modifications”, the answer from the Ministry of Finance has not come yet, but have comments going to the middle of June. The Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank on request “b” did not answer��.According to him, even with a legal ban scriptaction users will have the possibility of bypass through technical means (VPN, etc.), therefore, prohibitive approach does not solve the problem of security of citizens, and in fact will create an uncontrollable black market.The General Director of the Moscow School Digital Dmitry Zakharov said that if the draft laws to be adopted in the proposed wording, for Russia this will be a great missed opportunity: the loss of taxes, loss of load generating capacity mining equipment and, most importantly, the loss of innovators — entrepreneurs, programmers, lawyers who work in this field. We missed a lot by not providing a comfortable legal environment when it was needed, the expert emphasizes, and now “do want to ban everything”.Polina Smorodskaya
