Russia to legalize digital assets, excludes Facebook’s Libra

• A separate bill will also be adopted which will regulate Initial Coin Offerings (ICO).
• The adoption of the cryptocurrency law had to be postponed by the legislators.

Tass, a local media outlet, has reported that the Russian State Duma is all set to follow much-awaited legislation on digital assets in a period of two weeks. Alexei Moiseev, the Deputy Finance Minister, reportedly said:

“We discussed the bill and agreed on the final version of the text during a meeting last week. Fundamentally, everything is settled now. We are making the final revisions, and, hopefully, we’ll be ready to adopt it in the second reading within two weeks.”

A separate bill will also be adopted by the Duma which will regulate Initial Coin Offerings (ICO). This approach will become part of a broader law on other methods of raising funds by means of crowdfunding.

Earlier in May, Anatoliy Aksakov, chairman of the financial market committee of the lower chamber of the parliament, stated that the adoption of the cryptocurrency law had to be postponed by the legislators. The reason was that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) had to expand the terminology of the legislation. However, Aksakov affirmed that the law would be passed in June. Previously this year, Russian president Vladimir Putin had advised the parliament to adopt cryptocurrency legislation by July 1, 2019. 

Meanwhile, Russian authorities are strongly opposing Facebook’s own stablecoin, Libra, that was announced recently.  Aksakov said in an interview that Libra will not be legalized in Russia but the Russian citizens will be able to purchase it on foreign cryptocurrency trading platforms. Aksakov stated:

“In my opinion, Facebook coin won’t be legally adopted as means of payment on the territory of Russia. If someone wants to purchase these instruments from platforms that operate under foreign jurisdictions, they may do it at their own peril.”