President Putin Approves Cryptocurrency Mining Law in Russia
President Putin's latest move toward crypto further demonstrates Russia's "race" to "breathe easier" international payments.
According to a report from local news agency TASS, President Vladimir Putin has signed a law to legalize cryptocurrency mining in Russia.
The document states:
Foreign digital assets can be traded on Russian blockchain platforms, and the Central Bank of Russia will have the right to prohibit the issuance of individual assets if it finds a threat to Russia's financial stability.
Mining activities are recognized as part of revenue, not the issuance of digital currency.
Introduces new concepts, including digital currency mining, mining pool, mining infrastructure operator, address identifier, and individual who establishes a mining pool.
However, the new law also sets out limitations:
Only registered Russian legal entities and individual entrepreneurs are allowed to mine.
Russian citizens will still have the right to register to mine digital currencies, provided that they do not exceed the prescribed energy consumption limit.
The new law will come into effect 10 days after its official announcement, unless a different effective date is set later.
Before President Vladimir Putin legalized the crypto mining law, the Governor of the Central Bank of Russia, Ms. Elvira Nabiullina, also announced plans to implement an international crypto payment system in 2024.
Not only that, the law on the use of cryptocurrencies in international transactions is also expected to be passed by the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, in the near future.
When the law on the use of crypto is passed, cryptocurrencies will be regulated similarly to foreign currencies in Russia. In particular, the Central Bank of Russia will be the agency that manages cryptocurrency-related issues; the Federal Financial Supervision Service, the Federal Tax Service, the Federal Security Service and the Federal Asset Management Agency will have the role of controlling revenue.
It can be seen that the "Land of the White Birch" is rushing to "race" to legalize the use of cryptocurrencies in the country when the sanctions of the US and Western countries in 2022 related to the war in Ukraine increasingly put pressure on the national payment system. This directly led to the exchange Binance having to "say goodbye" to the Russian market when it was accused of "assisting" at least 5 banks on the list of Western sanctions.
The Russian government has made moves to "welcome" cryptocurrencies since 2023 when it supported organizations to test crypto payments, established an international payment system based on blockchain, and passed a bill on the digital ruble.
