The State Duma, the Russian parliament’s lower house, has admitted that the discussion of the digital financial assets bill, which essentially legalizes cryptocurrency, got stuck. However, they promise to review and adopt the document in the third and final reading before October 1.
As head of the State Duma Financial Markets Committee Anatoly Aksakov told a news conference at Parlamentskaya Gazeta, the digital financial assets bill got stuck because the house could not work out a common position on legalizing cryptocurrency in Russia.
“The document allows registration of exchange offices and cryptocurrency exchanges in Russia, which will legalize the use of cryptocurrency. The Central Bank opposes this policy, considering the bitcoins unreliable. According to the regulator, legalizing cryptocurrency will open a Pandora’s Box: Russians will be lured by advertising, deceived into investing in cryptocurrency, and lose their money,” he said.
On the other hand, legalizing cryptocurrency will make it better manageable.
“Some of us think it wrong to play ostrich, and insist that legalizing cryptocurrency will make these assets more transparent and facilitate investigation of terrorism supporters who use this payment tool for disguise,” Anatoly Aksakov added.
He pointed out that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommends adopting the digital financial assets bill by the end of this year.
“I think that by October 1, we will adopt this bill in one version or another; we will be working on it for the next two months. We will definitely not have enough time to review it as part of the spring session,” the parliamentarian concluded.