Russia to Vote on Cryptocurrency Legalization

Russia’s Ministry of Finance is drafting a bill to legalize cryptocurrency. The ministry is set to table the bill to the federal legislature for voting in February, Cryptoslate reported.

Alexei Moiseev, Russia’s Deputy Finance Minister, told reporters that the Finance Ministry “supports the legalization of trade in cryptocurrencies on official exchanges.” According to Moiseev, the Finance Ministry “[does] not want to limit and regulate, but we will set some limits.”

“This is about the fact that buying and selling [of cryptocurrency] will be somehow standardized. The general idea is that it will be necessary to buy and sell on official exchanges, and as it will be declared, it will be legalized,” Moiseev added. It seems the main concern is limiting crypto trading to official exchanges, which can be monitored in order to prevent illegal activities.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has ordered the government in a meeting on October 10th, 2017 to set up regulations for trading cryptocurrency, ICOs and mining by July 2018. News that Russia is pushing for support of cryptocurrency within the country seems to be further supported by the fact that Putin has also announced plans to create Russia’s own cryptocurrency, the CryptoRuble, which cannot be mined, similar to the Venezuelan petro. Its launch has been announced for mid-2019.

The Russian government has loudly urged for a cryptocurrency ban in the past, but the merits of blockchain technology have already been recognized and incorporated into a revolutionary voting system that is still being tested. Under the system, stockholders are allowed to issue proxy votes on corporate decisions.