Bitcoin
Russia Legalizes Cryptocurrency Mining, Introduces Experimental Regime
The lower house of Russia’s Federal Assembly, known as the State Duma, passed two cryptocurrency-related laws on Tuesday, a Russia-based policy expert told CoinDesk and Ria Novosti, Russia’s state-run news agency. reported.
The first law fully legalizes cryptocurrency mining in Russia from November 1, 2024. Legal entities and individual entrepreneurs registered with the Ministry of Digital Development can engage in mining, while those who are not registered can only operate mining rigs if they do not exceed energy consumption limits, Ria Novosti reported.
Supervision of mining activities will be distributed among different institutions, with the Bank of Russia apparently having predominant powers.
The cabinet of ministers will independently establish a scope of requirements for the activities of mining infrastructure operators. Other requirements, including for mining pool participants, will be approved by the Russian government in agreement with the Bank of Russia, the report said.
Miners will also need to provide information to the government-authorized body about the digital currency obtained as a result of mining.
The authorized body and the central bank will have the right to introduce a ban or restriction on transactions with digital currency in order to maintain Russia’s monetary stability.
This law also brings into effect a ban on advertising cryptocurrencies and offering them to an unlimited number of people.
The second law, which comes into force on September 1, 2024, is a special experimental regime that gives the Bank of Russia powers to allow authorized companies to conduct international settlements and foreign exchange trading in digital currency.
Cryptocurrency companies, exchanges and entities will need to apply to the central bank to be part of this experimental regime, said Anti Danilevski, founder and CEO of Kick Ecosystem.
“The Bank of Russia will be able to conduct not one, but three experiments starting from September 1 this year: on the use of cryptocurrency for settlements in foreign trade, on conducting exchange trading in cryptocurrency, and on creating an electronic platform for operations with cryptocurrency based on the NPS,” a separate document said. Report by Ria Novosti he said.