Russia has been one of those countries that has kept cryptocurrency and digital assets in their legal grey zones. The latest news from Russia’s Finance Ministry gives a newfound hope to a number of miners and cryptocurrency traders in the country.
Let us discuss what the news was and all the other details relevant to it in the article below.
What were the details of the news?
An announcement that could be traced back to the Russian Ministry of Finance said that they will consider permitting a selected group of qualified investors in the country to trade with digital currencies through their listing in a number of qualified exchanges.
The bill talks about the legalization of cryptocurrency within the country and giving rights to cryptocurrency miners to function within the regulations put forward by the different ministries concerning digital currencies.
The new bill was seen as a successful market for years of efforts taken by the cryptocurrency-favoring industrial lobbyist groups in the country.
Let us look more closely into the details of the bill in the next section.
What were the details specified in the bills?
As it was mentioned in the paragraph above the new bill gave permission to an exclusive number of exchanges and individuals to deal with cryptocurrencies.
The exchanges that were permitted to deal with digital currencies included the renowned Moscow Exchange and the St.Petersburg Exchange among others.
The others on the list were the St. Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange (SPIMEX), the St. Petersburg Currency Exchange (SPCE), the National Commodity Exchange, the Eastern Exchange, and the CTS Exchange.
When we look at the further details that the bill seems to have hinted at we can formulate the following developments in the future.
The newly proposed bill would mean that cryptocurrencies could be used to make settlements and as an alternate source of payment for transactions. It will also give a proper structure to the crypto-mining industries in the country.
This could mean that we could see the legalization of a number of stablecoins and other digital currencies in the future from Russia. The way the framework is set up will also allow for digital currencies to get a currency value, which could be useful when settling foreign trade agreements between countries.
What are the Impacts of the new bill on the cryptocurrency Mining industries in Russia?
Let us now focus on the proposal from the Ministry of Finance which included the regulations that they had set for cryptocurrency mining on Russian soil.
It was somewhat of an open secret that there were cryptocurrency mines operating in Russia even before the legislation was passed. These mines were however operating under a grey area where they were neither considered legal nor illegal.
Actions that were taken against these mines previously were also mostly for when they were suspected of stealing excess power from the power grid.
These mines will now have an option to sign up to a central register to get legitimacy from the law. These signings allow for the Ministry of Digital Development to monitor the mines and ensure that they are implementing the new regulations. It also gives the firms or individuals who run the mine the “right to mine” coins.
Under the new regulations, the mines would also have to report on the volume and address of their mined currencies and report it to the authorities.
One thing that is added to the bill is that the new signup is only mandatory for all those miners who exceed the energy consumption limits that were set up by the Russian government.
The new bill is considered to be on the opposite side of the previous bill that was proposed by the Russian government in 2022, which largely demotivated private cryptocurrency mines.
Let us look at what led to this change of mind from the Russian Authorities regarding digital asset trading and cryptocurrency mining.
What led to the new reform?
One individual who seems to have been instrumental in getting the bill proposed is Anatoly Aksakov. He is known to be the man behind bringing such a change of mind in the authorities about cryptocurrencies and digital assets.
His main points of argument concerned the benefit that cryptocurrencies would bring to the Russian economy which included a curb on illegal transactions that happen through cryptocurrencies, circumventing sanctions by Western authorities, and even helping to control the cryptocurrency activities that happen in the entire country.
The continuous lobbying efforts put forward by him and other mining groups were what led to such a change.
Final Thoughts
The new bill if passed would help the Russian government to adopt and control the future of cryptocurrencies and digital assets in their country.
This could be added to the benefit that the country would gain from using the currencies as a legal tender to pay foreign entities for the services used by them.
