Russia
Drops Plans to Criminalize Bitcoin Transactions
Russian news outlet Ria Novosti reports that Russian
government has dropped plans to criminalize bitcoin transactions, changing
the Digital Financial Assets Bill (DFA) to set aside an idea that would
penalize BTC investors with fines up to $7,000 or seven years in jail.
The bill would also punish
firms that operate or issue virtual currencies without approval from the
Russian central bank with fines up to $28,000. For violating “the rules for
transactions with cryptocurrencies,” firms could have been fined up to
$13,900, and individuals up to $2,800.
Anatoly Aksakov, head of the
parliament’s financial markets committee, commented that the revised bill
removed mentions of these fines, saying:
“They’ve removed everything, there’s only a
link that the regulation of digital currency will be determined in another
law.”
The DFA’s current version, if
approved, is expected to enter into force on January 1, 2021. Its current
version merely goes into the definition of digital financial assets and
establishes requirements for blockchain-based operations.
