Russia Plans To Create A “National Crypto Exchange”

Local legislators are drafting revisions to the current “On digital financial assets” legislation in conjunction with market participants.

Russian legislators are drafting proposals to establish a national cryptocurrency exchange. The Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of Russia, who have a long history of the dispute over crypto legislation in the nation, apparently support this initiative.

Local media reported on November 23 that members of the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, had been in conversations with market participants proposing revisions to the country’s current cryptocurrency law “On digital financial assets.” The reforms, which would provide a legislative foundation for a national exchange, will be submitted to the central bank initially.

Sergey Altuhov, a member of the Duma Committee on Economic Policy, emphasized the budgetary prudence of these measures:

“It makes no sense to deny the existence of cryptocurrencies, and the problem is they circulate in a large stream outside of state regulation. These are billions of tax rubles of lost tax revenues to the federal budget. “

Anatoly Aksakov, head of the Duma’s Committee on Financial Markets, suggested in June that a national crypto exchange in Russia could be launched as part of the Moscow Exchange, a “respectable organization with long traditions.” In September, the Moscow Exchange drafted a bill on behalf of the central bank to permit trading in digital financial assets.

A measure allowing cryptocurrency mining and selling mined cryptocurrency was brought to the Duma earlier this month. The action would establish a Russian platform for selling cryptocurrencies, but local miners would also be permitted to utilize international media. In the second scenario, Russian currency rules and laws would not apply to transactions, but they would still be required to be reported to the Russian tax office.