Russia’s Attempt To Regulate Crypto

According to Anatoly Akskakov, chairman of the Financial Stability Department, Russia is starting to work on its own CBDC laws(central bank digital currency). For that matter, lawmakers in Russia are already in the process of coming up with the right legal framework in order to regulate crypto.

Specifically, the process of ‘adjusting’ up to 13 laws in order to implement the CBDC into society.

The idea of the Russian government is to fully incorporate the digital ruble by January 2022. However, according to Akskakov, there is at least five codes and eight federal laws that need to undergo a change before making the idea reality.

Tax, Civil, Administrative Code, Criminal and Budgetary are some of the biggest concerns. In order to have control, the new legislation will have to control the organization of the circulation of the CBDC, legalization for payments, legal protection, permissions, etc.

While Russia already created the ‘digital financial assists’ law in January, the chairman believes that is not enough. In fact, Mr Aksakov believes that the State Duma (Russia’s lower house of parliament), must be able to recognize the differences between digital assets.

Specifically, the difference between cryptocurrencies, the digital ruble and stablecoins. That is in addition to his opinion that crypto mining must be regulated, i.e. guaranteed safety and judicial protection.

Other Banks Part of The Procedure

The Central Bank of Russia (CBR), intends to finish the CBDC prototype by the end of 2021. Moreover, the CBR will carry out the trial in several different stages. The first stage will see the CBR issue the CBDC. While in the later stages, 12 additional banks will get the chance to further release the country’s CBDC.

The idea of Russia to create its own CBDC is definitely something that is brewing for a long time now. Especially since many central banks around the world are opting for a similar move. China, European Central Bank, US Federal Reserve… All of these are currently working on creating a state-owned CDBC.

However, it is fair to mention that China is running the most aggressive campaign out of all. And the extremely strict crypto-crackdown just proves that is the case.