Although Russia's law doesn't depict what exactly is held as a monetary surrogate, the government still seeks to prohibit the use of DFAs.
According to the official statement released on June 14, the bill to ban the use of digital assets in Russia, submitted by the head of the Financial Markets Committee of the State Duma Anatoly Aksakov, went through its first reading.
The news comes after Aksakov introduced a proposal a week ago suggesting that digital assets as a legal payment method should be banned:
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“The ruble is the official monetary unit (currency) of the Russian Federation. The aforementioned article sets a prohibition against the introduction of other monetary units or monetary surrogates on the territory of the Russian Federation.”
In fact, earlier in June, the bill received much attention from professional lawyers. For instance, one of the teachers at Moscow Digital School Roman Yankovsky recently criticized the Russian Government’s ambition to ban tokens as a payment method despite the fact that they are considered and utilized only as security tokens.
Currently, people are not prohibited from utilizing cryptocurrencies as a legal payment method. However, if the bill passes, citizens in Russia won’t have the ability to pay for services and products with “digital financial assets” (DFA) anymore.
On top of that, the bill also depicts that DFA exchange operators shouldn’t accept transactions in digital assets as a monetary surrogate. If the bill is adopted, it will take full effect 10 days after the official announcement is issued.
Interestingly enough, Russia is jumping up and down on legalizing or prohibiting the use of cryptocurrencies in the country. For example, earlier in May, the Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation Denis Manturov mentioned that the Russian government was essentially planning to allow residents to pay for goods and services in crypto without any restrictions.
