The Russian parliament is trying to decide on banning digital assets in the nation or whether it will allow the exchange of cryptocurrencies
The Russian Parliament, the State Duma, postponed the adoption of the country’s main cryptocurrency bill, which is called “Digital Financial Assets” (DFA), due to lack of agreements.
The decision that would be announced this week could wait until the next autumn session, according to what local news media TASS recently reported.
“The DFA law is ready to decide whether we will prohibit cryptocurrencies as a means of exchange in Russian legislation, which means that there will be no exchange points or exchanges that work with cryptocurrencies. We have not yet reached a consensus on the subject”, Chairman of the Russian State Duma’s Financial Market Committee, Anatoly Aksakov, said.
The official added that they need to define what cryptocurrency is at the legislative level. Then, there is a fork in the road: prohibit the organization of infrastructures for the purchase and sale of cryptocurrencies in Russia or allow these exchanges and businesses based on cryptocurrencies.
The Duma is considering changing the adoption of the DFA bill to the fall session, whilst the representatives of the Russian Parliament have largely agreed on a bill about crowdfunding, according to local news.
Waiting for Decisions
Initially, the country’s parliament planned to adopt the law at the end of June. At that time, Russia’s Deputy Finance Minister, Alexei Moiseev, revealed that the authorities of that nation had approved different and separate legislation for cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings (ICOs), which will be a part of Russia’s law related to crowdfunding.
Previously, Russia had already postponed the adoption of cryptocurrency legislation due to a special requirement made by the International Financial Action Task Force (FATF) at the end of May in order to prevent Money Laundering and other crimes.
Two months ago, the FATF instructed Russian lawmakers to expand the terminology of the federal draft law related to the regulation of cryptoactives, which requires the country to legislate by determining and taking into account the main terms of the digital asset industry, such as cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin (BTC), in order to avoid misunderstandings in the future.
Russia’s main cryptocurrency bill, “Digital Financial Assets” (DFA), was approved by the Russian Parliament in May 2018, but it was returned to the first reading stage after reports that it did not include key concepts such as cryptomining, cryptocurrencies and tokens.
The Russian authorities had to delay the second reading of the bill to comply with the FATF order, even though the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, had established that summer would be the deadline for the state to adopt the regulation of digital assets, after having placed a similar order in 2018. In this way, the project continues waiting.
Last April, the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance issued a report stating that the lack of standard global terminology for cryptocurrency assets is an impediment to the adoption of clear regulatory policies in the cryptocurrency industry, so defining the concepts would be the main step to achieve a more efficient and secure regulation.
By María Rodríguez
